What is the administration's justification for this?

Question

One of the math teachers I work with has a special ed student (senior) in her algebra 1 class. He has not done all of his work and he failed the benchmark test (20% of his grade). So he failed for the six weeks (yes she had done all of the modifications he had on his IEP, but he still failed). She was called in and asked to change his grade to passing. The original argument was that he was not going to be required to take the state test because he is special ed and therefore shouldn't have had to take the benchmark test. However, her grading policy, which was handed out at the beginning of school, listed the benchmark grade and nothing was said about it until he was failing. She refused to change the grade, and finally the administration (superintendent) overruled her and changed the grade to passing, anyway. What would be his (official) justification for doing this? (I know his real reason is the student is on the varsity football and would be ineligible if he was failing)

Answer 1

Yep the football is one answer. ANother one is that since he is failing, the IEP team is suppose to change the IEP plan to somethign that WILL help the child pass. THey want her to change the grade to passing to make the parents think teh child is ok so they won't want to change the IEP plan,

because schools do NOT want to help children with special ed. You can see this because he is failing.

But I do NOT see an 'official' reason to do this.

This should be brought up in a school board meeting, letter to newspaper, state complaints to the state,etc.

Special ed kids ARE suppose to take the state tests. If they do not, school is cheating so they can GET MORE MONEY. Happens all the time. Schools do NOT care about the kids, they just WANT MORE MONEY.

Answer 2

The goals and objectives and test accommodations on the IEP supersede the teacher's personal grading policy. It sounds like the special ed teacher assigned to this person is not doing her or his  job by either giving help to this student or by placing him in a lower level or ESE class.

Answer 3

"What evil lurks in the hearts of men? Only the Shadow knows."

The fig leaf they'll hide behind might be just what you cite above, that the student was not going to be required to take the test, so why should the benchmarks matter?

I love how the teachers can get fired or otherwise penalized for bending over not sufficiently backwards for the standardized testing, yet when it suits the all-important athletic activities, the teacher is supposed to ignore the standards.

I hope your colleague has documented all of this clearly. I don't think she should take action, necessarily, but it's best to be ready for the consequences to rain down.

This is not too far off from why I stopped teaching. I was tired of getting dumped on by most people most of the time, then told by the small remainder how "noble" my work was.

It sure didn't feel noble, being spat upon.

Cheers. I hope your colleague keeps up the good fight, but this might be an instance of discretion being the better part of valor.

Answer 4

Maybe your school is one of those schools involved in the "No child left behind" program, such a great program, where school offical's are so afraid of looking bad, at haveing kids fail (and thus showing that they suck as teachers) that they willingly pass everyone...