Principal: "No student gets a failing grade." Is she nuts??

Here is an interesting little example of the "leveling of the field". We all know getting passing grades requires some and often lots of work... but apparently, not at this school!

FOXNews.com - Teacher Sues Over Right to Flunk Her Students

Sheila Goudeau, by all accounts, was a good teacher. In fact, she was the only nationally certified teacher at Riveroaks Elementary School, and she was a nominee for teacher of the year.

But that didn’t qualify her to grade her students, according to a suit she has filed against the East Baton Rouge, La., school and its administrators.

According to the civil rights suit filed in federal court in Baton Rouge, Goudeau was asked to teach fourth grade last year by the school’s principal, Shilonda Shamlin, in order to help raise grades and have students prepare for the state mandated Louisiana Educational Assessment Test (LEAP), which all students in the state must pass to move on to the next grade.

After she took the job, the suit alleges, Shamlin ordered that no student was to get a failing grade and that teachers were not to record any grade lower than a "D."

Goudeau’s attorney, Craig Sterling Watson, said the suit doesn’t specify why Shamlin gave the orders, and he said Goudeau still doesn't know. He said Goudeau complied with the orders and didn’t fail students, but she complained about the orders and filed a grievance with the school district.

At that point, the suit claims, Goudeau was monitored, harassed and disparaged in front of her students. She has since transferred to another elementary school in the district.

The suit seeks unspecified damages for Goudeau's severe and extreme mental pain, suffering, and anguish; physical pain, suffering and anguish; loss of sleep; loss of quality of lifestyle; loss of reputation and standing in the community; humiliation and embarrassment; medical expenses; counseling; wages; and loss of earning capacity from the principal, the school district, and current and former school superintendents of the district.

Principal Shamlin did not reply to repeated requests for comment. Domione Rutledge, general counsel for East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, said the school district couldn’t speak about the allegations “because it still hadn’t been served with the papers.”

Lawsuits like the one Goudeau filed are rare, said Perry A Zirkel, a professor in education and law at Lehigh University says. He explained that while courts generally agree that a teacher's right to grade is protected by the First Amendment, they also find that administrators have the same right and can change grades as they like.

“So the teacher wins the right to give a D and the school has the right to change it to an A,” he said.

But the suit has already served one purpose. It brought about a wave of criticism aimed at the principal and school administrators and showed that the school staff was bitterly divided. When a story about the lawsuit appeared in The Advocate, a Baton Rouge daily, a chorus of complaints charged that Shamlin ruled the school with a heavy hand and demanded regimentation of studies and classrooms.

“It's a crippling work environment at Riveroaks and the school's reputation is well-known throughout the parish," wrote an anonymous poster to the newspaper's website. "Just consider the teacher turnover at the school. There is almost an entire new staff hired each year. This year won't be any different.”

But another responded, "Mrs. Shamlin has done more to improve the quality of education at Riveroaks in the last four years than any other principal. Ask any parent that has had more than one child there over the years. She cares about the students and has high standards for them and the teachers."

The case is unlikely to go to trial for some time, Watson said.

They're not doing these kids any favors by passing them, they're only setting them up for much bigger failure later in life.

Exador said:

They're not doing these kids any favors by passing them, they're only setting them up for much bigger failure later in life.

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Agreed. It's the same mentality that some parents have when they spoil their kids. They think they are trying to be nice and helping the kids but they are just teaching them that someone is always going to bail them out in life which for most people isn't true. It also doesn't teach them how to overcome challenges in life.

It's not so surprising that a lot of the younger generation seem to have this entitlement syndrome. If they are constantly given everything without working for it then how can they not have an entitlement syndrome?

I would much rather get a D or an F and learn a lot rather then learn little and get an A, case in point right now I'm in the middle of "fighting" with the dean of the IT department about the "great" new professor they had hired for networking, he has yet to do his own lecture.... we just watch videos, I would much rather struggle in the class than have what I have right now.

XJ-linux said:

At that point, the suit claims, Goudeau was monitored, harassed and disparaged in front of her students. She has since transferred to another elementary school in the district.

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Is it just me, or does anybody else think that schools are filled with a special kind of stupid people? School administrators across the country engage in nonsensical acts that make no sense and go against the grain of common decency. Are they so dense as not to realize that their actions are inevitably going to lead to a lawsuit? I read stories about people suing schools and the alleged actions/words by the administrators, and I'm thinking, wow, these people are incredibly stupid. Why do we have them running institutions of learning?

Seriously, act like a decent human being and you're not gonna get sued. Simple as that. Why do you have to go out of your way to act like a jerk? You know in situations like these the jury will always sympathize with the person who got harassed. In almost every case I read about a school getting sued for bad behavior, the school loses.

I think one of the main problems is that there is a lack of accountability. If a school gets sued and loses, the damages come out of the district budget. The person who engaged in the activity doesn't face the consequences, whether in the form of money damages or loss of their job. Not surprising, the administrators aren't going to fine or fire themselves. It's up to the public to make sure idiots don't end up in positions like this. We need smarter, more level headed people on school boards, not bottom of the barrel, power starved neanderthals.

Exador said:

They're not doing these kids any favors by passing them, they're only setting them up for much bigger failure later in life.

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Well said. A lesson learnt in the school years is easily rectified. But let it compound and years later have a mistake in the workplace and that could cost millions of dollars or someone's life.

I think this is just a buck passing exercise. The school does not want to bother to source the extra funds to repeat the failing students or pay after hours wages to teachers for student tutition. So they just pass the child up through the system and say he is someone elses problem now and not my problem anymore. Someone needs to take responsibility here and say "Hey this is my problem these children and I wil work hard to fix the issues".

And employers wonder why their job applicants and workers don't have the basic skills in in life needed to do almost any job. Because they were never properly taught at school, and the teachers don't care about properly teaching the children. Any old stuff will do who cares if the children actually learn anything from the bad teaching or not. Just give them all A's and everyone's happy.

That's just one example of how our school systems are failing to educate students. (I would say "failing our students" but, while correct, could be misconstrued.) It happens in countless schools all over, and is symptomatic of the large educational morass we've fallen into.

Here in Australia the Federal Government has introduced a scheme where all students nationally of selected years are tested with the same examination and the results placed on a national grading basis available online to schools and parents.

Boy is there ever some opposition from teachers to having their teaching skills, or otherwise, tested and available to parents with Teachers Federations boycotting the tests. Seems to me it is world wide this PC claptrap rather than good education.

Guess this come under attack and earn loss of reps lol!

Kash said:

Is it just me, or does anybody else think that schools are filled with a special kind of stupid people?

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Yep. I am absolutely terrified to send my 5 year old to public school later this year. I keep reading stories like these and it makes my head spin. Honestly, what is with these people?

We need smarter, more level headed people on school boards, not bottom of the barrel, power starved neanderthals.

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Exactly. And therein lies the problem. Too many simple-minded, power-hungry, small people in positions of authority.

Yep. I am absolutely terrified to send my 5 year old to public school later this year. I keep reading stories like these and it makes my head spin. Honestly, what is with these people?

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I faced the same situation as you some years ago when my daughter first entered school. My wife and I decided to send her to private school instead. Expensive, but a decision that we have never regretted.

Regards.

Watch this.

Oh and be prepared to be ticked..
YouTube - Stupid in America

That video is a bit on the long side! Later, maybe.

harryb2448 said:

Here in Australia the Federal Government has introduced a scheme where all students nationally of selected years are tested with the same examination and the results placed on a national grading basis available online to schools and parents.

Boy is there ever some opposition from teachers to having their teaching skills, or otherwise, tested and available to parents with Teachers Federations boycotting the tests.

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Unfortunately, many will believe that student scores are a perfect measure of a teacher's effectiveness. Granted, a teacher that is able to engage kids is likely to have many successful students. But, the home environment has so much to do with potential success in the classroom also. And, when people think about this issue, they usually have a "normalized" student population in mind. These schemes to measure teacher effectiveness with a test have absolutely no place in the special education environment. How do we help teachers help those kids? I think we have to help their parents first.

toMACsh said:

How do we help teachers help those kids? I think we have to help their parents first.

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Exactly!!
Teachers spend about 4-5 hours a day with students. Where are the parents at for the other 19-20 hours of the kids day??? If a child fails at school, the parent/s failed their child more than the "system" ever did.
Too many parents feel that they can leave it up to the teachers to teach thier kids about life. Teachers don't get paid to take on all that responsibility for what a parent should be doing on a constant daily basis.

Agreed. I think all students should have to sign an agreement when they enter any high school. But the document requires 3 signatures. A repesentative of the school, the student and a parent.

The student signs it to say "I will behave and try hard at school and do all my work."

The repesentative of the school signs it saying "This school will teach the student properly up to a decent standard, not fudge the marks, and make sure the school is a safe envrionment free from bullying and other potential hazards."

The parent signs it to say "I will make sure the child attends school every day and I will make sure the homework is done and extra activities like weekend sport are attended. And I wil help with homework of the child if needed".

If a proper document like that was written up and all 3 parties signed it, it'd help. At least to the point if the terms of the contract were breeched you can take action.

gagnerants said:

I would much rather get a D or an F and learn a lot rather then learn little and get an A, case in point right now I'm in the middle of "fighting" with the dean of the IT department about the "great" new professor they had hired for networking, he has yet to do his own lecture.... we just watch videos, I would much rather struggle in the class than have what I have right now.

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This is why I quit two colleges after I finally got an IT position.

I'm paying for an education. I can buy all the technical manuals in the world but if I'm going to a school to learn about networking and I'm taking the highest level network class where we're basically following along with books and not doing anything hands on, then I'm wasting my money.

I've also had entry level VB classes where we were still stuck on loops at week 4 or 5 because idiots would take the class as what they though was an easy elective and have no clue what they're doing. Then the professor would have to spell it out for them. I'm not paying to listen to a bunch of morons sit around trying to wrap their heads around a for next loop when that's something I learned before I got to college. At least not for a concept that simple.

And then there were professors that were just ****s. I had an English class where the professor would mark off one letter grade for every spelling, grammar, and punctuation error on any written paper. I don't believe anyone got above a C. I'm paying to learn, not for you to tell me that I put a comma in the wrong place, especially when we're dicussing literature and not once have we went over any basic fundamentals. Mistakes and typos happen.

The colleges I went to sucked.

Wow......

Schools need to be more open to the private sector.

The private schools actually have motivation to make their school better than the rest.... Their money relies on it!

This is almost the total opposite for public schools. It seems that the failing schools are more rewarded than the schools that are being successful. The bad schools get millions of dollars of funding.

I attend a charter school that has a different philosophy than public schools. This makes for a better education. It is lamentable that most schools only care about the test scores. Test scores do not properly reflect the knowledge of the students.

I also despise that schools no longer teach important things in life. You are not taught how to pay taxes, how to drive, or anything that is extremely important in life.

It is a shame that this is what has become of such a great nation.

My personal thought, is that not everyone is cut out for every level of schooling. I'd really love to see education focus more on the 3 R's in elementary school. Teach kids what they need to function in society too - don't steal, don't shout, keep your hands to yourself, mind your own business, if you hit you'll get hit back, etc... High school should either: prepare you for the type of work actually available and in demand at the time you are graduating high school at age ~18, prepare you to properly raise a family and economically manage a household, or prepare the upper 25% of students to attend a university. I know that I left high school completely under-prepared for the 6 years of unskilled labor and other grunt level jobs I performed while attending college. It would have been nice to know how to work on cars, or wire electrical instead of mowing grass in college. Had no idea how to manage money for that matter either. And speaking of college... when did university become technical school? Universities use to teach a wide array of topics to round an individual, in addition to their desired major area of study. Today, it seems like people go simply to get "the degree" in their field, and get ****** when they are asked to pay attention to grammar, spelling, etc... They have schools that focus exclusively on one topic - they're called technical universities and they could care less if you know European history or pick up some basic biology or geography. College is more than just your major in my opinion. Seems like the drones flocking to college to "get a good job" squeeze out the folks who are there for an actual education. Do us a favor - attend Devry, Capella or Arizona. College use to be for over achievers, not everyone who can maintain a heartbeat. Seems like today that people with money who are hiding from mainstream work, or your average B-C students, or folks that have some need to fit a profile go on to higher education. You know why college degrees aren't worth much anymore? EVERYONE HAS ONE.

Danny Noonan: I've always wanted to go to college.
Judge Smails: Well, the world needs ditch diggers, too!

XJ-linux said:

Today, it seems like people go simply to get "the degree" in their field, and get ****** when they are asked to pay attention to grammar, spelling, etc... College use to be for over achievers, ...

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Oops!