“Not Meeting Standards”

I am absolutely sick over this. This new policy that our local school district has implemented does not make sense to me. If you don’t want to read the article…here is the rundown. Memphis City Schools have implemented a new policy called “Not Meeting Standards” or NMS. What it essentially does is it allows students who make an F in any class (grades 7-12) in the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd quarters to be able to make up all their work in the 4th quarter in order to be able to pass that grade/class. I am all for giving second chances. Maybe say, a student made an F on an assignment that they actually tried to do, not one they just didn’t do, give them a little better understanding and have them try again. I had a teacher that did this for us. If we failed a test/homework/project, she would let us redo it for a better grade but the highest we could get on it was an 80% which is still a B, much better than an F.

I do not however, believe in allowing students to slack all year long and then think they can make it up at the end of the year. I think work should be made up as it goes. I believe that this policy is doing nothing but instilling in our children that it is ok to “play now and work later”.

Also, I think it is unfair to students who work hard to get good grades the first time around and they see all the other students not working, then those other students get to “make up” all the work they failed in the first 3 quarters.

As a student in school to be a teacher, I do not believe in this policy whatsoever. I have read comments from other teachers that do not agree either. Most of the teachers are saying that these students have already been given chance after chance after chance and they still do NOT do the work. I do not believe this is an understanding the work problem, I believe this is a laziness, don’t want to do the work problem. And I believe this problem starts at home…not at school.

Parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives. Especially when it comes to education. A lot of these students need to know Jesus Christ. Unfortunately, there are very few that actually attend church regularly, that saddens me.

I really truly believe that the NMS policy is doing more harm than good. Do you have an opinion?