Yes, you should all be gasping collectively!

Per usual, I found something that made me pissed off enough to make a blog post about 5 minutes after I finished a long, boring post.



According to the DDN (motto: "technically a newspaper"), a number of parents protested outside the Dayton Board of Education to demand that their children be allowed to walk for graduation, even though the children had failed to pass the Ohio Graduation Test. The argument these parents seem to have (at least according to the 2 parents who were quoted) is that the kids have the requisite number of credits to graduate, and therefore should be allowed to pass. To quote:

"Parker said her daughter earned 21 credits, was a good student and worked hard
to try to pass the test."

Whether we agree with the policy of the State Test or not, this is the same sort of excuse-making I get to hear from my (undergraduate) students - they worked hard, completed the assignments, why shouldn't they get an 'A' (or at least pass)? But it's not like these exams (or my own grading policies) are a surprise; every student and parent knows that they need to take these exams to graduate. If they don't meet the established requirement, why should they be allowed to march? Is there a 'right' to walk at graduation? Would these parents support a student who passed the exam but never attended a single class his senior year, then decided he wanted to walk because he fulfilled every other requirement?



If the parent's want to protest, that's fine. I'm glad they support their children (in a fashion). But then this quote shows up, from a parent named Mr. Domineck:

"The standards are unequal and it is unfair to kids in the city, white or black,
who don't have the resources of a Kettering."

To give a little context, the DDN article notes that Kettering schools allow students to walk even if they haven't passed the exam (the state law is that each school board can decide on its own whether to allow such students to march).



The matter of potential class/gender/race-based bias in standardized testing is certainly debatable, but to bring it in here is, frankly, bullshit. The majority of DPS students have passed these exams; I don't have the percentage of students in Kettering that failed to pass, but we can at least agree that there are in fact at least some who do so.



As often is the case, it seems like the last refuge for a filed argument is to claim victim status.

This ends your irregularly scheduled rant...