Strange policy for Mississippi state biology1 test., page 1

Strange policy for Mississippi state biology1 test., page

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Topic started on 30-6-2011 @ 04:03 PM by willydude89

I could not find any information on the Internet to support this post so if you do please post it.

Alright, a student is required to pass the biology 1 state test to graduate. Their biology 1 teacher is scored on how well the students do on that test.

Well the teacher has failed if the students' average grade on their biology test is not better than the scores from their 8th grade math/algebra and English/language arts state test.

So the students biology 1 skills are compared to their 8th grade English and math skills then that comparison is held against the teacher.

That means that if a student scored advanced on their 8th grade state tests the teacher is responsible to make sure their biology 1 test score is advanced and so on.

reply posted on 30-6-2011 @ 04:36 PM by emptyOmind

reply to post by willydude89

yes, this is the job of the teacher, to expand students knowledge. sounds like they just are a little stricter on the teachers.

reply posted on 30-6-2011 @ 04:44 PM by willydude89

reply to post by emptyOmind

but biology has nothing to do with math and english and they are holding the biology teachers responsible for the students math and english test grades that is very unfair

reply posted on 30-6-2011 @ 04:54 PM by fixer1967

This is just another way to doctor the grades so it makes things look beter than they really are. Just some more of that "No child left behind" crap

reply posted on 30-6-2011 @ 10:20 PM by denynothing

reply to post by willydude89

Biology and math go hand in hand, just like language arts do. To say they don't is completely incorrect. In Science you have to write scientific papers in a certain style to communicate to other scientists. You can't just say I cured cancer and that be that, you have to write up your entire process. Math is incredibly important in biology, it can be as simple as counting a number of specimens or finding the P of the data, or doing a Chi square of genetics passed down through a generation. Science is the application of math, and is an arm of Language Arts.

edit on 6/30/2011 by denynothing because: (no reason given)

reply posted on 2-7-2011 @ 05:57 PM by Sphota

reply to post by denynothing

There's that, and let's also assume that if a student is not so good at Math, they may also not be so good at Biology.

However, any single student could have an extra gift in math, biology or language, but be poor at the other two, either for lack of motivation or interest or some skill set is missing from upbringing or genetics, who knows?

But, when you consider an A student in Language probably should not be getting a C in Biology or Math, unless the teaching is not on part with the other two. This works both ways, by the way, since the student could be graded too harshly or too leniently by one or the other teachers. In other words, if I saw the following report card:

English -- A
Biology -- A
Algebra II - C

I could either interpret the following possibilities:

1. the student is not interested in Algebra,
2. the student has some mathematical issue, like the math version of dyslexia
3. the teacher of Algebra is teaching poorly,
4. the teacher of Algebra is grading too harshly,
5. the other two teachers are evaluating their students too lightly (it's more probable for one teacher than several, though)

In my case, in my sophomore year of highschool, I had straight As in English, Spanish and Biology, but a D in geometry (go figure). To date, there were external factors that affected my performance in that class as well as the teacher, who was rather standoffish and assigned a lot busy work.

I think making the average amount of deviation (i.e., if all the non-biology grades of the 24 students of Biology teacher X are added together and compared with the average grade they get in Biology teacher X's class, the discrepancy would be how the teacher is evaluated).

It's seems like crappy, bureaucratic reasoning though. Because if all students were given good grades, does that mean they are all intelligent, all the teachers are really good, or that all the teachers and/or the material is too light or evaluated to leniently to a state or national standard?

It's like getting straight As at a Research 1 university and straight As at a fourth tier, 4-year college in some random town and then going head to head with each other for a job at a company. Who knows who is better for the job, but the recognition of a 4.0 does not hold more water than attending a really good university and getting a 3.5 (for example).

reply posted on 16-7-2011 @ 09:19 PM by denynothing

reply to post by Sphota

I get your argument but I counter with, I have never heard of one biologist picking their science because they were not good at math or english. I mean I think it is a fair way to try cross teach in the schools. My physics teacher taught how to do vector addition and then correlated his lessons with my functions statistics trigonometry teacher. I mean one subject should not be indicative of how a student will perform in others, but with that said all subjects rely upon each other.

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