Re: Caving in: "Too strict" teacher fired

[David Dockstader <DRDOCK00@UKCC.UKY.EDU>]

On Tue, 10 Dec 1996 21:19:14 -0600 (CST) Scott Rippetoe said:
> How can anyone justify an 80% failure/drop rate? Am I missing something?
> What if it was your child in this class? Would you think anything was
> wrong? Can you imagine teaching under any circumstances that would lead
> to this result? I have taught under some pretty adverse conditions, but
> could never justify failing/dropping 80% of my students.
If one is forced to teach a set curriculum and if mastery is required to pass
a standardized test or as a prereq for the next course, and if 80% of the
students are incapable or unwilling to acheive the required mastery then it
seems to me that an 80% failure/drop rate is not only justified, but necessary.
At my school I understand that the conditions which I have just described
routinely result in a 70% drop/failure rate in developmental math classes.
You might think our problem is advising, but most of these students start in
arithmetic, which our most elementary developmental course.  I used to laugh an
d wonder out loud how these students could function at all.  However, I quickly
discovered it is no joke.  These students function just as poorly in the real
world and will spend most of their lives as little more than indentured servant
s.