SEAT TIME CREDIT
These days, many New York City high school teachers are receiving memos
with passages such as the one below, written by the Principal of Wings
Academy in the Bronx:
Concurrent
options is a concept that is not new, however, it is based on what is
commonly known as seat time. This means that if a student has taken a
class for a whole semester, yet has been unsuccessful in their
endeavors to achieve success (credit accumulation) in that time period,
the class can be extended (i.e. a college incomplete) until you (the
teacher) feel the student has met the class requirements to move on.
This can be done in a number of ways: projects, readings, tests,
independent study, et. al.
Even if you were not aware of the educratic hanky-panky around the idea
of “seat time credit,” such a convoluted, edu-babble description of a
student failing a course should immediately raise one’s suspicions that
something less than complete rectitude was at work. That’s the import
of George Orwell’s argument that bad political writing is invariably
“the defense of the indefensible.” [Politics and The English Language]
Creativity does not stop with “seat credit time.”
The Principal of Bronx Aerospace Academy has an intervention ready
before the failure grade is even recorded. A memorandum to her faculty
includes the following passage:
Provide failing
students an opportunity to make up work by completing a project over
the vacation. Projects should be comprehensive enough to award students
a passing grade if they complete the assignment. If students are
attending your class every day, they should be given the chance to pass.
For the non-teachers, let’s be clear about what this memorandum means.
Johnny Aerospace has come to my Social Studies class everyday for the
past four months.
With a few weeks left in the term, he has not handed in a single
homework, much less the class term paper, and his highest grade on a
class exam has been 40%.
As his teacher, I am now supposed to devise a vacation project that
will give him the same course credit as a student who has completed his
homework and his term paper, and has class exams averaging 85%.
So while the Mayor and the Chancellor preach about how they have
eliminated social promotion from New York City schools, the DOE has a
tacit policy of giving away credit to students who have failed a course.