I am an instructor in Ohio. My district administrators are approaching the staff with this new grading policy also. There are many mixed emotions. I am so far not in favor of it, especially because of it's "socialist" approach to grading.

But what I would like to address here is if it is our intentions to encourage the student who is failing (or will fail next semester) simply because they dug a hole to deep to climb out of, let us not create a false sense of accomplishment. Let us try a different "strategy" to grading. For example, how about we start all students out at the beginning of the semester with 100 percents (A's). Now as the students take tests, or whatever form of assessment, we remove points from that 100 percent. The student who is failing will now choose to either try or not try. They will not be in the preverbal "hole" so far that they cannot dig themselves out. Meanwhile, the students who are successful are still accurately recorded. Also, as kharger (see above comment) stated, we as professionals will always have the means to help the student who is trying, but may not be passing, by altering our electronic grades or rewarding points for some evidence of learning and improvement. This is just, as I said, one possible approach to grading. I am sure there are more.

You "think tank" advisors and state administrators need to come down and get some real life experience before you go and make blanket decisions for the public schools. ASK us our opinions, work with us, and don't just make policies based on "some" research, which may or may not have some real credibility to the findings. You may be surprised on how much we really know and understand about this topic.