Friday, March 17, 2006
From our school board correspondent Karen Carson
Good Afternoon All,
Last year the Tennessee legislators were charged with the task of creating a uniform grading scale in answer to questions about achieving a 3.0 for purposes of distributing lottery funds. As a result of this the Tennessee grading scale was established. This stipulates that an A is 93-100, B is 85-92, etc. The other thing that was changed is that AP and Honors courses were no longer considered on a 5.0 scale.
In Knox County we have acknowledged the increased difficulty of the AP and Honors courses and students were given an additional 1.0 for each AP course and 0.5 for each honors course. The state last year changed this to offering an additional 5 POINTS to the Letter Grade for AP Courses and 3 points to the letter grade for honors. For example, if a student received an 87 in an AP Biology course, his grade would be adjusted to a 92 (5 points). The impact of this is to move the student from a grade of B to a grade of B! Not really an incentive.
All of this has been the long way of letting you know that there are two Bills being considered this year that would allow us to go back to the 0.5 and 1.0 additions for these classes. I ask that you consider contacting our state representatives and letting them know you support this change. I am attaching 3 documents. The first one is a copy of the proposed Bill. The second is a copy of the letter the Board of Education is sending our state representatives. The third is a list of our representatives and their contact numbers
Please consider supporting this change. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Also, please feel free to forward this to neighbors/friends.
Thank you,
Karen Carson
Last year the Tennessee legislators were charged with the task of creating a uniform grading scale in answer to questions about achieving a 3.0 for purposes of distributing lottery funds. As a result of this the Tennessee grading scale was established. This stipulates that an A is 93-100, B is 85-92, etc. The other thing that was changed is that AP and Honors courses were no longer considered on a 5.0 scale.
In Knox County we have acknowledged the increased difficulty of the AP and Honors courses and students were given an additional 1.0 for each AP course and 0.5 for each honors course. The state last year changed this to offering an additional 5 POINTS to the Letter Grade for AP Courses and 3 points to the letter grade for honors. For example, if a student received an 87 in an AP Biology course, his grade would be adjusted to a 92 (5 points). The impact of this is to move the student from a grade of B to a grade of B! Not really an incentive.
All of this has been the long way of letting you know that there are two Bills being considered this year that would allow us to go back to the 0.5 and 1.0 additions for these classes. I ask that you consider contacting our state representatives and letting them know you support this change. I am attaching 3 documents. The first one is a copy of the proposed Bill. The second is a copy of the letter the Board of Education is sending our state representatives. The third is a list of our representatives and their contact numbers
Please consider supporting this change. As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Also, please feel free to forward this to neighbors/friends.
Thank you,
Karen Carson
