Don - the truth is the educational piece of this all is scary. My son is attending one of the best public high schools nationally, is a junior and all his classes are now pass/fail! It is the same for my 8th grader. His honors math and Spanish even are now pass/fail.
Many kids and families are up in arms over this as how is GPA to be calculated? My son is taking AP courses that are now pass/fail?!?!
The issue is that in many areas kids have no access to laptops and or WiFi. (Our school district said we would provide laptops if needed, granted we have very few low income students in our district.) So it’s not a level playing field. For some kids in this country, they need their school subsidized lunch and districts are required to still provide these meals even during this time. It is another case of the haves and have nots and legally states have to provide equal access. Some 13 year old kids have Mac laptops while others need a lunch.
My sense is the teachers are phoning it in. (And painting rosy pictures as they do so.) The kids are phoning it in. My sense is we are paying teachers to do very little work. If things are pass/fail, I think kids quickly learn to do just enough to pass.
Very little has been communicated on a national level regarding this. And state-wise I am not sure of what is left to districts to decide.
Me 41, H 47, M 15 yrs, S11, S13 BD 1: 11/4/14 we work on it; really I pretzel myself BD 2: 3/31/15 H goes down to "dorm room" 8/15: H back to MBR 10/15: H back in dorm room 1/18: H files, now divorced
