Teacher overlooking errors and giving child 100%

[Nart]

My son is in first grade and unfortunately does not get differentiated work. He reads fluently and at home does Math in Focus second grade. The work he gets at school is usually really easy for him. I just started to notice that he occasionally will have an error on his work or skip a problem but will still get credit for it since the paper is marked 100% or something like 31/31. I don't know at this point if his teacher is even looking over his paper before putting 100%. For example, he skipped a problem on the top upper hand corner of the second page of his last math assessment. I am sure he would have been able to answer it correctly but since he skipped the problem it should have been marked incorrect. Or on a spelling dictation test he misspelled "really" but ended up with 100%. I don't care about his grades at this point, I just want him to get in the habit of checking his work. If I catch it I make him correct it. Has this happened to your kids?

 

[Garga]

Looks like the teacher isn't actually looking at the work.  Very strange.  You can ask her about it.

[Arcadia]

Spelling was sometimes marked by a parent volunteer when my older was in school for K and 1st.  Math was looked over by the teacher but not graded.  If the teacher spot a mistake she will circle it but if there is not markings, I won't know if she has looked at it.

Since his work is graded, I will ask the teacher about it. 

[OneStepAtATime]

Definitely ask the teacher (gently).  I did run into this with one teacher years ago.   Well, two, really, but the other one was just awful all the way around.  With one, she actually wasn't the one doing the grading.  It was an assistant that floated around the classrooms.  The teacher was grateful for the heads up.

[IsabelC]

I expect the teacher probably got a wonderful first impression of your child's advanced skills, and just assumes all his work is correct without looking at it properly. When I was at school, there were two girls who got A for everything they did. One time, they actually lost their project (there were rumors that it had been stolen by other students, but I can't swear to it as I wasn't privy to all the details), and the teacher awarded them each an A anyway.

 

Or the teacher is just pressed for time and rushed the marking.

[SKL]

I've seen it both ways.  My kids' 1st grade teacher would let my advanced kid get away with stuff like that, but penalize my other kid who was struggling.  Sometimes they made the exact same mistake and only my struggling kid got docked.  Yeah, that used to make me hot, possibly for the wrong reason.  :P

 

Now their 2nd grade teacher does the opposite - she will sometimes dock my advanced kid for not thinking of something that wasn't required of the average kids, while being generous with partial credit for my slower kid.

 

But more than that, the teachers make mistakes.  Whether it's not noticing an error or marking a correct answer wrong.  It can be frustrating, but I have to remind myself that they are human too, and we all have our weaknesses.  (Though I still get crabby every time I see her write about my kid needing a "tudor" in reading.  :P)

 

I guess I would not worry about the teacher not correcting every mistake if the child is advanced and clearly has the knowledge expected.  You are going over the mistakes with your child, so no harm is done.  Bringing it up with the teacher could be a sensitive matter for her, and she might not respond well.  Is it worth it?

[MistyMountain]

My dd's teacher is more likely to mark my dd wrong for every little thing or mark something wrong that was correct then the other way around. I don't think she missed one mistake yet this year. lol Most of my dd's mistakes are caused being careless. I would maybe say something when you get the chance like maybe at a parent teacher conference.

[mathnerd]

My DS's teacher always gives him 100% on every thing. I have come to the conclusion that she is artificially inflating the grades - private school policy (?), curriculum too strenuous so that they need to do this to keep parent morale higher(?). I am not sure.

My DS's school does not have an open door policy and I need to go through their director for every issue. So, I decided not to fight this battle and correct DS's papers myself and point out the mistakes and have him redo that part. In their defense, DS rarely gets things wrong, so this happens once a month or so. And I have an eagle eye and maybe other parents with kids in this class room don't care to look through answer papers??

[mathnerd]

 (Though I still get crabby every time I see her write about my kid needing a "tudor" in reading.  :p)

 

My child's teacher always writes "there" when she means "their". It happened too many times and I got used to it!

[Library Momma]

t. Spelling was sometimes marked by a parent volunteer when my older was in school for K and 1s Math was looked over by the teacher but not graded.  If the teacher spot a mistake she will circle it but if there is not markings, I won't know if she has looked at it.

Since his work is graded, I will ask the teacher about it. 

 

This is the craziest thing I've ever heard.  Aside from the fact that they aren't qualified, I can't imagine a parent being privy to the grades of a student that isn't their own.  Do they have to sign a confidentiality clause?

 

I know that sometimes students have questionable handwriting and the teacher may err on the side of the student.  I have a hard time believing that a teacher would intentionally mark an incorrect answer correct.

[Heathermomster]

When DS sat in class, I always sent back incorrectly marked papers. I wanted him graded for his work. No more. No less.

 

Can you imagine keeping all of these incorrectly graded papers, assigning your grade of her grading, and forwarding a copy to the administration?

[Arcadia]

This is the craziest thing I've ever heard. Aside from the fact that they aren't qualified, I can't imagine a parent being privy to the grades of a student that isn't their own. Do they have to sign a confidentiality clause?

Spelling is not graded. In fact nothing done in class was graded. What went into my boy's report cards were term tests given one to one by the teacher while a substitute teacher handles the class.

Parents gossip about kids behviour instead of grades. Some parents help everyday and know which kid has accomodations. Like my boy needed help cutting, won't talk unless he is willing and has the messiest desk.

[emmanizzysmama]

My daughter is in first as well and we got back some math papers which had all been checked at the top (meaning it had been looked over). DD repeatedly was not correctly writing numbers in expanded form. For example, it would ask her to write 57 in expanded form and she would write 5+7 instead of 50+7. She made the error a number of times and none were corrected. I brought it to the teacher's attention by saying that I was concerned that she was struggling with a concept, rather than the teacher was not checking her work carefully enough. It still accomplished what I needed it to because now I see where mistakes are circled on my daughters work. I think sometimes teachers get in to the habit of not worrying about kids who are working at or beyond grade level.

[kiwik]

We don't see much but at the end of each term their "learning log" is sent home which has samples and tests in it (how many depends on the teacher). I have noticed a lot of mistakes but i have just ignored them.

[vonfirmath]

This is the craziest thing I've ever heard.  Aside from the fact that they aren't qualified, I can't imagine a parent being privy to the grades of a student that isn't their own.  Do they have to sign a confidentiality clause?

 

I know that sometimes students have questionable handwriting and the teacher may err on the side of the student.  I have a hard time believing that a teacher would intentionally mark an incorrect answer correct.

 

How is a parent not qualified to mark spelling pages?  I was the proofreader for our literary magazine way back in High School -- and that is a situation where you don't even get a list of the correct answer to work off of like you can for a specific list of words.

 

Also, in older classes, spelling pages are often marked by switching your test with a student around you and so each student is grading a different student's spelling test.

 

[vonfirmath]

The parent becomes unqualified when they can't adhere to the privacy policy that they signed as a prerequisite for becoming a classroom volunteer. Grades are considered private..the parent isn't allowed to survey the class, determine where her child ranks, and start asking the topranked students' parents for names of tutors based on that ranking info s/he's picked up. S/he is also not allowed to direct her child to start competing with 'X', who she has just observed has the top grade or reading level, and 's/he knows her child is better, but just doesn't test as well'.

 

Arcadia's post indicated none of this happening. I would not jump to assuming that a parent helping the teacher out by marking pages would mean anything like that.

 

[Reefgazer]

Happened to my DD all the time when she was in public school.  I think teachers are just over-worked and hurried and will take short-cuts with a kid that usually gets correct answers, or legitimately miss some in a hurry to get the papers graded.  I know it's disconcerting, though, because you don't really have a grip on how they are doing in class.  If this happens repeatedly, I'd kindly broach it with the teacher.

 

ETA:  My 3rd grade son's teacher lets him occasionally grade the math quizzes for the week.  He says when he finishes his work he goes up to the front desk and sits in the director's chair and she thinks he is bored and gives him grading to do.  *eye roll*  I don't know why she does that; you'd think she could get a confidential parent volunteer to do that, because my son comes home and tells me everyone's grade on the math quiz from Friday.  That's kind of screwed up, IMO.  Not only that, he's 9 - so I would expect that he would make mistakes, also, in grading. 

My son is in first grade and unfortunately does not get differentiated work. He reads fluently and at home does Math in Focus second grade. The work he gets at school is usually really easy for him. I just started to notice that he occasionally will have an error on his work or skip a problem but will still get credit for it since the paper is marked 100% or something like 31/31. I don't know at this point if his teacher is even looking over his paper before putting 100%. For example, he skipped a problem on the top upper hand corner of the second page of his last math assessment. I am sure he would have been able to answer it correctly but since he skipped the problem it should have been marked incorrect. Or on a spelling dictation test he misspelled "really" but ended up with 100%. I don't care about his grades at this point, I just want him to get in the habit of checking his work. If I catch it I make him correct it. Has this happened to your kids?

 

[Reefgazer]

Parent volunteers in my DS's school undergo a background check and sign a paper with a confidentiality clause.  My son, however, does not sign a confidentiality paper (see my previous post). 

This is the craziest thing I've ever heard.  Aside from the fact that they aren't qualified, I can't imagine a parent being privy to the grades of a student that isn't their own.  Do they have to sign a confidentiality clause?

 

I know that sometimes students have questionable handwriting and the teacher may err on the side of the student.  I have a hard time believing that a teacher would intentionally mark an incorrect answer correct.

 

[Library Momma]

The parent becomes unqualified when they can't adhere to the privacy policy that they signed as a prerequisite for becoming a classroom volunteer. Grades are considered private..the parent isn't allowed to survey the class, determine where her child ranks, and start asking the topranked students' parents for names of tutors based on that ranking info s/he's picked up. S/he is also not allowed to direct her child to start competing with 'X', who she has just observed has the top grade or reading level, and 's/he knows her child is better, but just doesn't test as well'.

 

 

I haven't been in here in  a while, but yes this.   Also there are so many students with test accommodations and it is not the business of a non staff member to be made aware of those accommodations, many of which are evident when looking at their modified test.

[Guest Kelly220]

Old topic but found it in a search.  If you notice excessive nit picking or 100 percents for wrong answers, the teacher is most likely not grading it.  Parent volunteers are!  At the school my child attends, I had no idea why the homework, classwork and tests were sent back with such amateur grading until listening to the women at the park bragging about how they run the school and even get to grade the work.  So they give all their friends children good grades and then mark answers wrong for children that aren't in their circle or they dislike the child's parent(s).  They aren't even aware of privacy laws nor are they trained on how to grade.  On top of that, they are violating Ferpa.  This is a widespread problem where teachers try to make everyone feel sorry about their paychecks when they are caught doing something they shouldn't be and if the schools are ignorant on FERPA, they also keep parents ignorant on that too which can get them into big trouble.  So next time ask the teacher the right question which is "Who graded my child's work?"

 

Another red flag is excessive homework.  This means the teacher isn't grading it, someone else is.  Teachers want the least amount of work as possible so if parents actually took notice and did something about this, you would see the excessive homework drop.  They would either scrap homework or balance it out so the teachers won't have to grade so many papers.

 

These parent volunteers are NOT usually trained and most are not signing confidentiality agreements and even with those agreements they are still violating Ferpa.  Parents should read up on Ferpa as well.  It is no other parents business the grades, where the child lives.  These parent volunteer cliques do like to gossip loudly out in the open and brag about how they are in good with the right people so their child has nothing to worry about meaning they get away with whatever they want.  The reason is, the stuff they are doing around school is something they should be getting a professional to do.  The schools will claim "Funding!"  "FUNDING!"  but then that begs the question of, what are they doing with that funding in the first place?

[Guest Kelly220]

Parent volunteers in my DS's school undergo a background check and sign a paper with a confidentiality clause.  My son, however, does not sign a confidentiality paper (see my previous post). 

 

Parents should not be grading period confidentiality clause or not.  It's not a district law, it's federal.  The schools practicing this can get into big trouble if parents even knew their rights.  How many parents here get the Ferpa rights with their student handbook?  If you don't, go to the school and ask why!  They may mark you as a troublemaker which the cliquish parent volunteers will try to make your child's life hell but if you get enough parents to agree that they don't like their rights being trampled on, they can't argue with that.