Remember, you can access all of the math textbooks on line through www.classzone.com
You must sign up for an account and use the activations codes provided. Look in the mathematics locker on the left for the full instructions.
At California Aerospace Academy, the policy for moving on to the next level of mathematics is defined as follows:
- Students earning a grade of “A”, “B” or “C” may move on to the next course.
- Students earning a grade of “D” must repeat the semester they received that D in and may move on only when they earn a “C” or better for that semester.
- Students earning a grade of “F” must repeat the class.
I know of no classroom in America in which a “D” represents anything other than the failure of the student to demonstrate proficiency and the failure of the teacher to acknowledge it. The availability of a “D” is simply the policy option that allows a school to explicitly acknowledge that a student failed to demonstrate proficiency in the subject, while refusing to require the student to do so. In a genuinely standards-based school-system, the grade of “D” should not exist. Either students are proficient (usually a grade of at least an “A” or “B” and, sometimes a “C”) or they are not. The failure to be proficient should, in most circumstances, result in a grade of “incomplete” while the student is afforded more opportunities to learn and demonstrate proficiency. Should the student refuse to do so, a failing grade, not a “D” is the only accurate grade.
Indeed, most teachers would agree that students to whom they have given a “D” grade do not meet the standards for that class, and the teacher would have regarded the “D” as an unsatisfactory grade. Nevertheless, for the purposes of awarding a high school diploma the “D” grade is regarded as satisfactory.
If standards mean anything, they mean that students must demonstrate proficiency in order to obtain credit for classes and, ultimately, in order to obtain a high school diploma from that school system.
-- Doug Reeves – Making Standards Work