Why is replacing the letter and number grading system with a passor fail system a bad idea?

Question

I don't really want your opinions, I just want to know why it would be a BAD idea. (for high school) thanks

Answer 1

because it doesnt motivate for perfection, it degrades effort to 'just good enough'

Answer 2

Pass/Fail promotes mediocrity and deters excellence. In the old days, grading was done on a curve. A certain percentage of any group was deemed to be better than the majority while a similar percentage was assumed to be worse than the majority. Therefor, in a classroom there would be only a couple of As, a few Bs, a bunch of Cs, a few Ds and a couple of Fs. If the best score was 70% on a test, that person would get an A because it was the highest score in the class. If the top couple of grades were 100% and 70%, the 100% and the 70% would both receive As, even though it was obvious that one test score was vastly superior to the next highest.

The obvious unfairness of this practice led to its demise. Pass/Fail is just another example of a supremely unfair grading system being used in order to make some kind of social statement.

Answer 3

We tried that at the school I teach at for one year and I can tell you some of the problems we had.

1) Parents and students didn't understand it and they prefered the old letter grade method.

2) It deters children from working harder to get better marks and/or excel in a subject. Why should I kid work harder if the best they can do is the same grade the kid who would have gotten the C- would have had.

3) Colleges don't like it. They can't determine if a child is a strong student or not and they will be less likely to accept students under that method.

4) Its not transferable to other schools or school systems.

5) Class rankings become meaningless

There were the main reasons we got rid of this method after on year.

Good Luck!!!

Answer 4

I actually would refer seeing the letter grade system replaced with percents as grades and class rank instead of GPA.

The reason for this is that in high school and upwards, grades are awarded by placement on the bell curve. This is a bad idea for two reasons: 1) It introduces grade inflation (an entire class can do lousy and the top scorers still get A's) and 2) The same people tend to get the same grades, regardless of the amount of effort put in by the entire class (an entire class can pass the material with 70's but the bottom scorers still get F's).

Answer 5

You don't really want opinions but want to know some opinions? That is exactly why pass/fail is not an option. Teachers must have the ability to judge a students grasp on a concept utilizing the whole spectrum of concept. Even people who did manage in our older, inept way to graduate from childhood, sorry, high school, never wanted to be graded as OK or inept. We preferred to face college and life with a challenge and on our own merit.

Answer 6

It would be a bad idea for high school because a pass or fail option makes it impossible to rank students. Colleges and universities, especially the Ivy League, look at class rank as one of the criteria for admission.

Answer 7

It would be bad because in subjects like english or anything that requires papers, there is a middle ground for grades because some students don't completely pass or fail.

Answer 8

Like the other poster said....there's no motivation for excellence. All a person has to do is just enough to "get by". Since when is mediocrity a good thing?