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This is crap. Here in India at least, attendance has nothing to do with college admissions. One can study better from home anyway. Also considering that it's a

This is crap. Here in India at least, attendance has nothing to do with college admissions. One can study better from home anyway. Also considering that it's a poor school, the teachers are surely not that great either. This is a puff piece. If the teachers taught better, students would come. This just shows how broken the system of failing due to low attendance is. These kids obviously worked hard in spite of school and that should be celebrated, not investegated. The teacher's attitude is weird to say the least. Good kids but didn't deserve to walk across that stage? The teacher ought to be sacked.

aidenn0 9y ago
FWIW, in Virginia (not far from DC, but under different laws), the school system I went to had a similar attendance requirement for passing, but it was in a gray area. There was significant legal precedent for disallowing failing students for non-academic (i.e. behavioral) reasons. They kept the policy in place just because very few parents would challenge the grade, but all who did would win.
notyourday 9y ago
American school system is absolutely bizarre. I'm from across the pond - I probably cut 80% of classes in my last year of school ( I ended up transferring to a magnet school in 4th grade ). Most of my "will likely succeed" peers cut between 20% to 40% of the classes that year. Our teachers did not care what so ever: you had to be in for the tests, there were no make up days, your grade was your grade which was an average of all tests given. Age classes were split into sections based on performance. If you were in 5A, you probably did better than you were in 5B and you were definitely miles ahead of 5D. At the end of the every year there was a reshuffling between the letters based on previous year results. No one, absolutely no one, wanted to go down a grade. If your grade was higher than the minimum, you got to take the final test before graduation. Achieving the minimum score on it allowed you to graduate. If you did not get there, you did not get to do it which meant another year of school. That was in all test subjects: literature, math, geography, chemistry, physics, biology, foreign language (addition only in our class). There was no curve. Hell, entire concept of a curve still baffles me. Results of the test: me - 2nd at 127% percent behind a girl who never cut a single class at 129%. Our of a graduating class of 142, 140 were taking the test, all 140 achieved the minimum 81% needed. All of people who cut classes that I knew scored over 94%. I did not realize how weird it was until I got to an American university.

aidenn0 9y ago

FWIW, in Virginia (not far from DC, but under different laws), the school system I went to had a similar attendance requirement for passing, but it was in a gray area. There was significant legal precedent for disallowing failing students for non-academic (i.e. behavioral) reasons. They kept the policy in place just because very few parents would challenge the grade, but all who did would win.

notyourday 9y ago

American school system is absolutely bizarre. I'm from across the pond - I probably cut 80% of classes in my last year of school ( I ended up transferring to a magnet school in 4th grade ). Most of my "will likely succeed" peers cut between 20% to 40% of the classes that year. Our teachers did not care what so ever: you had to be in for the tests, there were no make up days, your grade was your grade which was an average of all tests given. Age classes were split into sections based on performance. If you were in 5A, you probably did better than you were in 5B and you were definitely miles ahead of 5D. At the end of the every year there was a reshuffling between the letters based on previous year results. No one, absolutely no one, wanted to go down a grade. If your grade was higher than the minimum, you got to take the final test before graduation. Achieving the minimum score on it allowed you to graduate. If you did not get there, you did not get to do it which meant another year of school. That was in all test subjects: literature, math, geography, chemistry, physics, biology, foreign language (addition only in our class). There was no curve. Hell, entire concept of a curve still baffles me. Results of the test: me - 2nd at 127% percent behind a girl who never cut a single class at 129%. Our of a graduating class of 142, 140 were taking the test, all 140 achieved the minimum 81% needed. All of people who cut classes that I knew scored over 94%. I did not realize how weird it was until I got to an American university.