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Why Johnny Can't Fail; how a floating standard has destroyed public education
Why Johnny Can't Fail; how a floating standard has destroyed public education
Why Johnny Can't Fail
By Jerry Jessness

How the "floating standard" has destroyed public education

I confess. I am a grade-inflating teacher guilty of "social promotion." I have given passing grades to students who failed all of their tests, to students who refused to read their assignments, to students who were absent as often as not, to students who were not even functionally literate. I have turned a blind eye to cheating and outright plagiarism and have given A's and B's to students whose performance was at best mediocre. Like others of my ilk, I have sent students to higher grades, to higher education, and to the workplace unprepared for the demands that would be made of them.

I am, in short, a servant of the force that thwarts nearly every effort to reform American education. I am a servant of the floating standard.

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