While businesses continue to hightail it out of California because of high taxes, crime, stratospheric housing costs, homelessness, lack of leadership, and just the continued slide to mediocrity the state is mired in, the exodus might be countered with bad students streaming into the state. 

Since the LAUSD has announced that they will phase out “F” grades altogether, why not? It will be impossible to fail a class in Los Angeles, Santa Ana, Oakland, and Sacramento school districts, and “D’s” will be limited going further. 

What about students who don’t do their work or fail their final exams?  According to school leaders, they should not be shamed with the indignity of a bad grade, so instead, they will receive an “incomplete.”

Of course, a fancy academic name is tied to this sort of teaching – it’s called “competency-based learning.”  Those who believe it’s a good idea make the argument that assessment should solely be based on mastery of learning.  So, in other words, if the kids learned the material in the class, it will supersede and trump how they perform when tested. 

Here’s what Steven Kellner, of California Education Partners, told Fox 5 in LA.

“What mastery learning does is really allow students every opportunity to show that they know the material and if they don’t know the material, to get the support they need to be able to demonstrate it.”

There is another side to this argument.  Critics of the no F grading say bad grades do serve a purpose because they let students know they haven’t learned the material enough. 

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