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Don't dock students for missing deadlines: NDP

By: Nick Martin

Posted: 01/15/2010 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

‘Marks should reflect the student’s achievement and should not be distorted as a result of work habits, attitudes or behaviours’ -- Former education minister Peter Bjornson (June 2009)

The provincial government has strongly discouraged teachers from deducting marks from students who are late in submitting assignments.

A letter from former education minister Peter Bjornson sent last June 22 to Carman Tory MLA Blaine Pedersen says students shouldn't be deducted marks for missing deadlines. The Tories released the letter Thursday.

Bjornson said if a teacher deducts 10 or 20 per cent because a student turns work in late, then that mark is not "an accurate indicator of what the student has learned or achieved." He said that while it is important to learn personal responsibility and good work habits, the lateness of assignments should be reported separately.

Bjornson told Pedersen provincial marking guidelines and a desire for uniform approaches to marking dictate that "... marks should reflect the student's achievement and should not be distorted as a result of work habits, attitudes or behaviours. If a required assignment is missing, a zero is not an accurate indicator of what the student has learned or achieved; the teacher simply has no evidence on which to make any judgment about that learning outcome," said Bjornson.

The letter will further fuel public debate over the so-called no-fail policy in Manitoba education -- it does not exist in writing as provincial policy, but many teachers and parents believe that it is practised widely across Manitoba.

Several teachers who have contacted the Free Press have said -- under condition their names not be used -- that their division requires them to find ways to pass kids, including not deducting marks for late or missing assignments.

One teacher said there is pressure to accept assignments even after the semester has ended and apply the mark to the previous semester's grade. Students who don't turn in an assignment are to be given another chance, and teachers are pressured to make up additional tests for failing students until they get their mark above passing, said the teacher.

One retired teacher said it was a standing joke at his former high school that there were two ways to pass: work hard, or see the principal.

A Manitoba Teachers' Society poll showed 76 per cent of 800 adults surveyed oppose having a no-fail system. MTS will receive a teachers' task force report on workload issues -- including a committee study on no-fail -- in late May at its annual convention.

Tory Leader Hugh McFadyen has demanded students be promoted based on academic achievement.

Veteran Seven Oaks School Division superintendent Brian O'Leary said Thursday he agrees with the government: Don't dock kids for late marks, he said.

A student could do very well on a provincial math or English exam worth 30 per cent of the year, but potentially get a failing grade for late work in class, O'Leary said.

O'Leary said the education system's focus should be on keeping kids together with their social peer group and helping those students who are having learning difficulties. "The focus should be off a (no-fail) policy, which doesn't even exist," he said.

Holding kids back "almost invariably leads to dropping out," he said, urging schools to do "everything we can to keep kids together."

O'Leary confirmed principals and superintendents ultimately make the call on promoting kids. "Most promotion decisions deal with school administrators," he said.

That promotion decision would involve the parents, teachers and resource teachers, said O'Leary. "You would have had the resource personnel involved for the year previous," once the teacher identified a struggling student early in the school year and got help for that child, he said.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 15, 2010 B1

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