The Fark tag for this story of changes in Australian public schools: "Schools to reintroduce policies that allow teachers to fail children who can't pass their tests. In other news, common sense is off life support, but still not expected to survive."
SCHOOLS will have to reintroduce policies to let teachers fail students and make them repeat years if they cannot pass benchmark standards, under new Federal Government funding rules.
Education Minister Brendan Nelson said schools, particularly primary schools, now routinely sugar-coated student results and refused to acknowledge failures.
"I think we need to be able to say your son has not been able to meet the standard required," he said. "It is quite possible to present meaningful and honest information to parents in ways that don't demean the child."...
Dr Nelson's office has been inundated by copies of school reports, that parents said they did not understand, after he complained schools did not assess students in plain language any more. The reports – largely from primary schools – no longer fail students but provide encouraging words such as "working towards", "emerging" or "developing"...
Some schools have also stopped giving students reports that indicate outstanding achievement...
Dr Nelson said parents regularly complained to him that they had no real idea how their children were doing at school. He said parents wanted to know how well their children were doing in relation to the rest of the class.
Dr Nelson said many employers had also complained saying they were sick of interviewing young adults who thought "two plus three equals six."
Posted by kswygert at February 9, 2004 01:50 PM