Break for failing students really a disservice

Melinda Jagger, Henderson

Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Just when I thought the education system could not get any worse, I opened the Las Vegas Sun to read your article on grade inflation in Clark County Schools (“A floor for failing grades”). I was floored, to say the least. Why make a child do anything at all to pass? This is where we are headed, after all.

Students must learn accountability and responsibility. This policy teaches them that they can screw around the entire first semester and still make a 50, giving them a good shot at passing for the whole year. Pathetic.

I was a high school teacher for five years in two other states a good one, too, with a master’s degree (no, not an “online” one like many “teachers” today, a real one from a physical university) and quit last year because of things like this.

My class was hard, and I didn’t have a lot of sympathy for late work or students who woke up in April and decided to try to pass. But my kids knew the rules, knew I was fair, and knew they had to play by those rules if they wanted to pass.

The question at the end of the year is: Did this student consistently do at least 70 percent of the work, and did he know 70 percent, minimum, of the material? If not, the student must not be allowed to go on to the next level.

My husband works in the business world and is seeing the products of our education system workers who don’t know their head from their rear and have such a sense of entitlement they don’t think they need to show up on time or even be at work.

I recently applied to teach in Clark County, but I’m glad I saw this article before I could be sucked into a system like this again, and it’s a shame. No wonder Clark County cannot attract or keep good educators. Genuinely good educators would never agree to do this; it’s simply unethical.