The “No Failing” Education System is FAILING

Have you ever seen a kid repeat Grade 2? How about Grade 4? KG? Never, because teachers are not allowed to fail students until high school. With this system in place, one must wonder:

* If the teachers are not allowed to fail, then what does the report card even indicate?

* Your child shows you his or her report card and it shows a B+ (78%). Since a child cannot fail, this means that the number does not start from 0. So, what does the 78 even mean? That is like getting you test results and it says 14.5 on top. 14.5 out of what?

* If the child is actually failing in class, the teachers give marks for participation, self regulation, independent work, responsibility, and all the other things that show up on the front of the report card. So, if your child writes 2 + 2 = 10. Instead of getting a failing grade, the teacher will give marks for trying, putting the name on the top, attempting to do the test, showing how the child got to a 10 and a variety of other things; however, 2 + 2 IS NOT 10!!!

* If the child keeps moving ahead without failing, then there are fundamental issue that are brushed aside, and the student goes on to the next year. They keep going ahead until high school where THEY CAN FAIL, and now it is a little bit too late to get help because the problem arose years ago.

* Furthermore, if the child keeps going ahead to the next year and then suddenly fails in high school, then it is too late to do anything. The student gets put into applied or other remedial programs, which are very difficult to come out of. Moreover, Universities and Colleges only look at grades from the final few years of high school. So, if the students keep moving forward, even though they might be failing, it catches up in high school. They get a failing grade, post secondary institutions track that and now it is too late to do anything. Do you see something wrong with that?

As a parent, you get a progress report card and then the final report card, which indicates how your child has done throughout the entire year. If that report card is not even reflecting your child’s actual progress, then we are completely left in the dark. We assume things are going well and then suddenly they are not! Do you feel that this system is effective or teachers should be allowed to fail kids in the earlier grades, so the parents can do something about it? Why push the child all the way up to high school with artificially inflated grades and then fail them there, so Universities look at the grades and say, “Sorry, your child does not qualify for this institution.”