Imagine the uproar if I sent this letter to the parents of my Accelerated Math Students.
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Dear Parents,
In an effort to mirror the seemingly popular Obama economic plan I am going to revamp the grading policy in my classroom. If your student earns grades that are in the top ten percent of the class, I am going to redistribute 39 percent of his or her score to the "less fortunate" students in the class. This will create a more level playing field and will create opportunities for the students who find it more difficult to achieve in school than your students do. Your child may do extra credit work to boost their end of term grade, but any additional work will be scored at a special "capital gains" rate with 55 percent of score from this extra work being redistributed to their classmates.
To ensure that there is not an achievement divide between the students in my classroom, a performance cap of 85 percent will be imposed upon all work submitted. Any score that exceeds 85 percent will have the overage redistributed to students who performed less well on that assignment. This will prevent a small group of students from earning far more points than their classmates thereby avoiding a chasm between the "haves" and the "have-nots". If, at any time, a student's total grade points equal more than 2.5 times that of any classmate, his or her grade points will be adjusted to eliminate this disparity.
By the end of the grading period this redistribution strategy should place all student scores within one standard deviation of the mean creating a more equitable overall grade distribution.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
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