Finally, the Los Angeles Unified School District is considering doing away with the "D" grade. Probably due to our inexplicabe love for draconian customs, it has lasted far too long. It should have been run out of our school systems long ago.
Your average apathetic student only wants to do the minimum to graduate, and the "D" grade assures them that they can be "below average" (which is the explanation given for what a "D" represents) to do so. While this does have some relevance to the real world, such as in jobs that are protected where workers are able to get by with doing the minimum work required, in diy projects your spouse wants you to do but you have little interest in, or in bachelor cooking/health maintenance, it is not a recipe for a society's success.
Schools are telling kids that below average is good enough. The places where students are expected to learn coddles them with lowered expectations. Furthermore, their parents are often relieved that their children are passing, not caring that they are doing so at a hopelessly low level. It is not a great mental leap to think that students with "below average" but passing grades are going to be below average workers who take away from productivity and are the foundation of a below average society.
If the best we can expect from many of our students is to just do enough to get their diploma, accompanied by a warm feeling of accomplishment, make them at least earn it with a "C," a grade that says they are "average." To do otherwise is to admit that we care more about a student's promotion than production. In a system that has been more prone to disgrace than earning respect, disposing of the "D" grade would be a good start to showing the public that LAUSD has faith in student success.
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