Ok, fair warning, this is going to be a rant post.
This should be Johnny
I’ve just read an article by Joanne Laucius on a new education policy called the “Johnny can’t fail policies”. Very simply, the policy gives high school students the opportunity to redo tests and assignments and receive ‘incompletes’ for missed work and plagiarism instead of a zero. These policies as stated by the Ministry of Education have been implemented to increase student’s success, quoting studies that failing students or giving them zeros does not cause them to learn their lesson and succeed in the long run. This is ridiculous.
Why this is Ridiculous
First off, without viewing the evidence of student achievement vs harsh marking for plagiarized and missed assignments I cannot specifically comment from a quantitative standpoint. However, from a qualitative standpoint I can tell you that this ‘policy’ is absolute bullshit and will only produce low quality, academically unaccountable students.
The western education system has made a choice in terms of how we teach students. We have decided to use standardized testing in order to categorize and stratify students. This is a very good way to let people who are good at crossword puzzles and rote memorization to float to the top. I personally think our system is bullshit but unfortunately I’m not a university dean or in charge of the board of education… yet.
If we’ve made the decision to use this system we can’t go both ways. We can’t tell students on one hand that tests are important and the way you move on to success in post secondary education and on the other hand… give students a card blanche pass to not participate in the very system that we’ve set up to stratify them. I’ve been a teaching assistant for a long time and I have friends and family who have been lifelong educators. Even though I don’t believe in standardized testing, if you’ve decided to go with testing students for all that is holy stay with it!
What the Teachers are Saying
A recent poll from teachers who were using the Johnny can’t fail policy showed that only 10% of teachers polled saw an increase desire in students to complete work.
- 84% of teachers saw an increase in late assignments.
- 62% of teachers saw an increase in students skipping tests.
- 62% of teachers reported increased absenteeism.
- 38% of teachers reported an increase in plagiarism.
Even though some selector bias obviously exists with teachers being polled, there is an obvious problem with this policy. 81% of teachers have also reported that this policy has increased their workload. With the state of our public education system getting worse every year, I believe the less time teachers can apply to teaching the worse our education system will slip.
Why this will create stupider University Students
Let me state, over the years I’ve been a teaching assistant, students have gotten quite a bit lazier and generally stupid. I’ve seen the quality and quantity of work fall behind and I’m not alone in this view. Many of my counterparts in my company which provides online tutoring and have been teaching assistants have seen the same phenomenon in new students. This is one of the primary reasons I started the VTA Method so that we could try to stop this ‘dumbing’ down of university education. What the Johnny can’t fail policy is doing is encouraging the very things we are trying to stop in our online tutoring program and university in general. Without a strong sense of accountability and intellectual tenacity I shudder to think of what will become of these students later in their educational careers.
What do you think? Please comment below.
Also, if you’re interested in becoming a better student you should check out my program.
Online Tutoring Program
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Dear VTAMB, since May 27th you have a total of 7 comments on your posts. This for me indicates that the educational system worldwide works just fine and your spreading of FUD will have no effect. Students are more than happy to become stupid in the globe’s universities and they will certainly welcome any policies that will allow them to become even more stupid every day while retaining the same or worse academic achievement. I am sure that a study will eventually emerge that students without any tutoring at all (virtual or real) perform better in an enterprise environment.
Finally, I suspect that this blog and your product are incompatible: If you keep the blog and abandon the product, the blog will become very successful (and your income will rise). If you choose to abandon the blog and keep the product, the latter will flourish: students love studying aids but hate the cognitive theories/opinions/political or pragmatic views behind them because they simply like to remain as stupid as possible (getting from 0 to 1 is much easier than getting from 9 to 10).
TA, thank you for your response. Let me first say I understand where you are coming from as many students look for a quick fix which is one of the top reasons why I titled my book ’study 30 minutes a day and get a 4.0 gpa.’ However, as you would know if you had read my book, I actually teach ‘learning’ techniques rather than studying techniques but in a subversive way as to give the student both short term study tricks wrapped in long term learning strategies that allow them to study smarter and faster in conjunction with learning. Secondly, if I wanted to be a millionaire I probably wouldn’t be in education. Money is not the primary objective of this blog or the vtamethod (as you can see I don’t even have any adsense). The goal of this blog is to spread valuable learning techniques, help students achieve academic success and keep my employees (who are also my close friends working through grad school) gainfully employed. I would encourage you to read the remainder of my posts and get yourself a trial copy of my program to see the advantages of the program before making such accusations.
Have a wonderful day!
We had the “I” system when I was in high school about 12 years ago. If you did not pass the first time or missed an important assignment, (plagiarizing wasn’t a big issue then) you would get an “I” for incomplete and you would have until the end of the semester to make it up. All this did for me-as a student who liked the pressure of deadlines-was enable my procrastination.
The program was canceled after my senior year. I am sadden to hear of its return by another name.
@ Ralph
Unfortunately Ralph it seems iterations of this policy will always plague high school students until educators and policy makers realize that not all students are pre-disposed to success.