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Comment by yaitsyaboi | Hacker News Reader

I think the 50% rule is okay. I get that it's annoying for the students who tried and got a 55%. But I suspect that the kids who would get score much less than a 50 are probably the least engaged and most disruptive.

If a 50 can keep them statistically in the game, with a chance of turning it around and passing, that might be worth it. It's similar logic to not giving life sentences. People with no hope of a good outcome are harder to deal with. A kid with a 22% average that you have to deal with for 12 more weeks must be a nightmare. They have no incentive to try at all, or to let the class proceed in an orderly wat.

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The 50% rule is just changing the meaning of the numbers, no? 50% is the new 0%.

Though I do agree that we should focus on the chance of turning it around. Students who score poorly early on and then score well later should be extra rewarded, not held down by their past performance.

You’re cheating that kid. They’re going to get pushed into the next grade and fall further behind until they graduate and can’t do basic math.

I don't think theres a school district in the country that will advance a kid with a 50% average to the next grade. Idk if there's some arcane No Child Left Behind provision about kids who have been stuck for 3 years, but in general a 50% is a no go.

And it's not like you can get 50s all year and get a few 80s and average it out. It takes a lot of really sustained effort to come back from that. Most kids won't. But at least it's mathematically possible for more of the year.

> I don't think theres a school district in the country that will advance a kid with a 50% average to the next grade.

You’re half right.

Most school districts won’t let a student with a 50% average pass.

That said, teachers will be pressed to give extra points for participation or extra credit or just to change the scores to get said kid over a passing level. Some teachers will do this unprompted just to make sure they don’t have to see the kid next year.

Not to mention that there will undoubtedly be calls of some sort of discrimination if failing grades are common in any given teacher’s class.

> I don't think theres a school district in the country that will advance a kid with a 50% average to the next grade.

You’d be wrong to assume that. Here’s a kid that made it to 12th grade having only ever passed 4 classes. 0.13 GPA, and that actually put him in the top 50% of his class. Things are much, much worse than you think.

https://foxbaltimore.com/news/project-baltimore/city-student...

So if you’ll just fail the student overall, won’t that hurt them as much as a failing test grade?

If they can’t do the work you need to let them know at some point. Not sure delaying the news is that helpful!!

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