While some districts use "F" as a failing grade, the city uses an "E."
"The 'E' is to be recorded no lower than a 50 percent, regardless of the actual percent earned. For example, if the student earns a 20 percent on a class assignment, the grade is recorded as a 50 percent," said the memo from Jerri Lippert, the district's executive director of curriculum, instruction and professional development, and Mary VanHorn, a PFT vice president.
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"A failing grade is a failing grade," district spokeswoman Ebony Pugh said.
At the same time, they said, the 50 percent minimum gives children a chance to catch up and a reason to keep trying. If a student gets a 20 percent in a class for the first marking period, Ms. Pugh said, he or she would need a 100 percent during the second marking period just to squeak through the semester.
"We want to create situations where students can recover and not give up," she said, adding a sense of helplessness can lead to behavior and attendance problems.
"It's not grade inflation. We're not saying, 'Give people passing grades,' " Ms. Pugh said.
But the policy strikes some teachers and parents as rewarding bad work and at odds with the district's "Excellence for All" improvement campaign.
"Clearly, some people will not be pleased with this policy," Mr. Tarka said. But he added, "We stand by that decision."
Judy Leonardi, a Stanton Heights resident and retired district home economics teacher, said she objected to the notion that a student could "walk in the door, breathe the air and get 50 percent for that."
"I don't think it sets kids up properly for college, for competition in life," she said.
To Ms. Leonardi, a 20 percent score means a student isn't trying or needs more help with the material. Automatically putting 50 percent in the grade book, she said, doesn't help the student in either case.
"To me, it's morally wrong," she said.
Ms. Leonardi worries that the policy could cause high-performing students to goof off from time to time, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't have to bounce back from anything lower than a 50 percent.
And she said one teacher she knows already worries about how awkward it will look when a student correctly answers three of 10 questions on a math quiz -- and gets a 50 percent.
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Well, what do you know? Taxpayer subsidies for failing grades... Just like the banks! Is it any wonder no one expects to reap the consequences of failure anymore? They've been taught from grade K that the government will come in and mop up the bottom line!
Next, Dementia sufferers have a "duty to die":
The veteran Government adviser [Baroness Warnock] said pensioners in mental decline are "wasting people's lives" because of the care they require and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia even if they are not in pain.
She insisted there was "nothing wrong" with people being helped to die for the sake of their loved ones or society.
The 84-year-old added that she hoped people will soon be "licensed to put others down" if they are unable to look after themselves.
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"Put down." LIKE AN ANIMAL.
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Last year the Mental Capacity Act came into effect that gives legal force to "living wills", so patients can appoint an "attorney" to tell doctors when their hospital food and water should be removed.
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Right. So your lawyer can tell the court when you should be dehydrated and starved to death.
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Recent figures show there are 700,000 people with degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's in Britain. By 2026 experts predict there will be one million dementia sufferers in the country, costing the NHS an estimated £35billion a year.
Lady Warnock said: "If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service.
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The lack of regard for human life coming from this disgusting creature is appalling!
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Neil Hunt, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "I am shocked and amazed that Baroness Warnock could disregard the value of the lives of people with dementia so callously.
"With the right care, a person can have good quality of life very late in to dementia. To suggest that people with dementia shouldn't be entitled to that quality of life or that they should feel that they have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric."
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"Because of her previous experiences and well-known standing on contentious moral issues, Baroness Warnock automatically gives moral authority to what are entirely immoral view points."
Phyllis Bowman, executive director of the campaign group Right to Life, added: "It sends a message to dementia sufferers that certain people think they don't count, and that they are a burden on their families. It's a pretty uncivilised society where that is the primary consideration. I worry that she will sway people who would like to get rid of the elderly."
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At what point are you too old? Who decides whether you're a 'burden' or not?
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