Eliminating a Grade of F Raises Tempest in S.D. Schools : Education: An avalanche of criticism prompts trustees to reevaluate decision, which was part of a package of reforms intended to help stem the number of dropouts.

Even Randy Conry, a San Diego city schools teacher on the cutting edge of far-reaching educational reforms at the new O’Farrell Junior High, has doubts about the district’s new policy to eliminate F grades in secondary schools and replace them with a no-credit mark.

“I’m in both camps, I guess,” Conry said, noting the deep rift that the policy, now under further review because of the controversy, has brought between the board of trustees and most teachers, counselors and principals.

“Some say we have to prepare students for real life, for failure--and then others say we shouldn’t penalize them but should give another chance to succeed,” Conry said. “But that can get wishy-washy; you tell them they’re not failing (by eliminating an F), yet at the same time tell them they’re not succeeding” by giving them a no-credit.

“And some kids may benefit from a cold, hard slap in the face” with an F mark, Conry added.

Compared with Conry, a majority of colleagues are less judicious in how they view the last month’s decision by the board. It was part of a package of moves to help reduce the large number of students--16% a year--who drop out before finishing high school. It eliminates the F grade as a way to show a “more positive” attitude toward students having difficulty in school--indicated that an initial poor academic effort will not be held against students and encouraging them to try harder a second time.

Students would still need to pass enough classes to total 44 credits, including required English, math, science and social studies subjects, in order to graduate. But their grade-point averages would not reflect classes in which they failed, no matter how many times they took the course. The idea is that fewer students would drop out because of the psychological trauma of a transcript checkered with Fs.

More than any other move in the past several years, the board’s vote has triggered an avalanche of phone calls and letters, according to trustee John de Beck, the only member who has opposed the idea up until now.

Critics say the policy will lower academic standards and discipline, will send a message to students that they are not responsible for the consequences of their actions, and is a misguided effort to improve self-esteem.

Critics have also focused on the move as symbolic of a host of pressures and reforms that leave them uneasy about the future direction of education in San Diego city schools.

From efforts to hold teachers more accountable for students not doing well, to ideas for having employees at individual schools decide what and how they should teach, the San Diego district is in the throes of major changes that have thrown many habits and patterns out of kilter and lowered morale--especially when the district simultaneously has come up $25 million or more short of funds needed to maintain the present level of teaching next year.

For many critics, the idea to eliminate the F grade is shorthand for what they see as misguided attempts to address highly intractable problems of student motivation and adherence to standards.

Rather than prescribe grade policies--traditionally the dominion of teachers--many say the district should provide more money and training for smaller class sizes and alternative ways of instruction that might result in more students staying and doing well in school.

Supt. Tom Payzant, while defending the new philosophy, concedes that he failed to anticipate the sharp criticism and that he should have talked with more educators before bringing it before the board for approval, rather than only with a small group of teachers and principals on a few special committees.

Trustees also have begun to feel the brunt of criticism. On July 23, they again will debate the issue.

Many educators resent the attitude behind the district’s Dropout Round Table, the community group that originated the no-F proposal last year. Irma Castro, a longtime Latino activist who chairs the round table, last week called the group “the conscience of the district” for its effort to push teachers “not to expect that a large number of students would fail in school” but instead accept the round table’s admonition that they must “expect that every student will succeed.”

A typical reaction was that of veteran Crawford High math teacher Lamar Rogers, who during the last two years headed up an experiment to allow students failing algebra or geometry to take the course again, taught in a different way, rather than receive an F.

“I don’t know any teacher who goes into a class saying he or she wants half the kids to fail,” said Rogers, preparing for his 32nd year of teaching beginning in September. “If all kids passed my course, that would be great. We give every kid every chance in the world to succeed, but they have to take some responsibility for their work.”

Rogers said that about half the students who agreed to eliminate their F grade by taking the course again succeeded the second time.

“Still some failed the second time around, mostly because of a bad attitude and lack of interest,” he said. “That’s why I have a problem with the general policy. At some point, the kids have to take the consequences for not having done the work.

“Maybe a better idea is to let teachers have the option of not giving the F if a student agrees to repeat the course” and passes the second time around.

“If we as teachers have to find the most interesting way to teach math, then students have to show some motivation and parents have to require their kids to go to class.

“I don’t think that the fact I can’t reach some of these kids means I’m a bad teacher.”

Sharon Duffy of Mira Mesa High, a teacher for 16 years before becoming a counselor, questioned the philosophy behind the no-credit policy.

“I understand the intent is not to penalize students who feel they are in a hopeless failure syndrome but I’ve never met an educator who failed a kid simply because he or she tried but could not do the work,” Duffy said. Rather, she said, the vast majority of F grades are given to students who fail to attend class, thumb their noses at teachers and ignore homework assignments.

“It’s ludicrous to say that a no-credit instead of an F grade will protect the psyche of the kid who is failing. A kid doesn’t drop out because he or she gets an F rather than a no credit. The dropout mentality develops long before the student has a string of Fs,” Duffy said.

Added colleague Shirley Duchock, a social studies teacher: “The message being sent is that you don’t have to do the work if you don’t like it.”

Hoover High’s Hal Mitrovich, a social studies teacher and football coach, ridiculed the idea that a no-credit will put a struggling student in a more positive frame of mind to continue in school.

“If that is how we’re going to teach self-esteem, we’re really in trouble,” Mitrovich said. “I don’t give many Fs, maybe four (this past year) because any student who tries will get help from me, from the computer lab, from tutors--there are a million ways not to fail. A kid practically has to beg an F by not giving a damn. You have to try to fail.”

George Rion of Point Loma High, a history teacher, said that students “will not be fooled” by getting a no-credit on a transcript instead of an F.

“It won’t be long before the NC takes on the same meaning for them as an F,” said Rion. “I just don’t see where this is going to help a student’s self-esteem. A kid knows when he’s failing; it doesn’t come as a surprise.”

At the new O’Farrell Junior High--a hotbed of educational reform since it opened last year--teachers Conry and Kathy Lathus helped pioneer the school’s unique grading policy, which replaced the traditional A-to-F grades with O-to-3 marks, with zero indicating no effort and 3 meaning the student exceeded all expectations.

While the numbers can be equated to the A-to-F system, they are designed to wean students and parents from an emphasis on grades, in conjunction with smaller classes, teacher-initiated counseling, regular parent contacts and interdisciplinary teaching. The new grade marks are also given in sub-areas; instead of simply a 0,1,2 or 3 in English, a student could earn a 3 in reading but only a 2 in writing and a 0 in oral presentation.

“Instead of the district cosmetically changing an F to a no-credit, it should be asking what it can do to keep students for getting an F in the first place,” Lathus said. “You couldn’t possibly pass everyone on the educational system we have now” because it doesn’t offer enough options, such as those being tried at O’Farrell--from vocational education to independent study--for students not doing well in regular classes.

“If we really want to be truthful about eliminating Fs, you need a new system that does more than tell teachers that you can’t fail anybody.”

The policy is not without some supporters within the teaching ranks, although even they concede that without more emphasis on alternative ways of teaching, the name change itself will mean little.

Morse High English teacher Russell Armstead served on one of Payzant’s committees.

“It won’t make much difference unless we do more,” said Armstead, a mentor teacher. “But do I want to say to students that only those who conform to the traditional system will be successful, or do I say that all can be educated and avoid telling students they are failures because they need more time to succeed?

“I’ve never seen a kid who gets motivated because he’s been failed--never.”

Hoover High English teacher Alice Romero insisted that a teacher’s responsibility is to “work harder to find some way to motivate the student.”

In her present summer school class, she has students who have failed English and who write “I hate school” when she begins to have them keep daily journals, something most of them have never been required to do before, she said.

“The no-credit is not a problem with me and I think that just taking a class over for a student is a threat enough for them. . . . I don’t think the no-credit means the kid is escaping the consequences of (not working), but too often now, only the kid is blamed.”

Payzant said the deep opposition “is a sad commentary on the very deep-seated, very emotional feeling” of people who “want to put an F on the forehead” of students.

“It is bothersome that people want to punish a student forever for making a mistake” by having an F on the permanent transcript, Payzant said. “I don’t think life does that.”

But Payzant’s senior-high principals say the superintendent is missing the point.

“Why not do what districts like Poway do and allow a student to remove an F from his or her record if they take the course over and pass it?” asked Maruta Gardner of Mission Bay High in a proposal supported by her colleagues.

But don’t “reward” the student ahead of time, she said. “Retain some sort of carrot-and-stick aspect, because that maintains equity for the student who did do some work and punishes those who didn’t bother to do any of the work.”