The Education Act gives principals the right to overrule teachers. It really comes under their prerogative to pass or fail but they change failing marks to passing marks. I sadly had to tell many teachers that called me, very angry that the principal had changed their mark that there was nothing they could do about it. The teacher’s mark at the end of the day, is a recommendation to the principal.

I believe it has also played a part, not the major part but a part in the increased graduation rate in Ontario more as a signal to teachers only to fail the very lowest students. It is tantamount to saying 40+ is a pass.

That Manitoba situation is just stupid. Why not write the exams again next opportunity? It does not have to be the end of the road but what do they say to the next one in a similar situation?

Exam anxiety, I have a problem with it in the first place. When I was in high school, a student never wrote the mid-terms and the final exams, claiming test anxiety. But the student always wrote the classroom tests, met the deadlines in assignments, to which she had no anxiety. The student always had an average of 85 % and over. Back in the early 70s, students, including myself saw no test anxiety, except the prefect reason for getting out of taking mid-terms and final exams. I learned years later, she ended up dropping out of post-secondary, because she was bombing on the exams.

The PHD student with the sudden appearance of test anxiety after all the years spent in the halls of education, makes it very difficult for any students with any type of invisible learning disability that comes after the PHD student. A student with a disability that finally makes it to the stage of a PHD, will now have to confront the biases and prove that they will need an accommodation at a higher standard than what the standards are now. It will never be written in black and white, but it will happen, because this PHD student claiming test anxiety at the prospect of court action, has now change the unwritten rules. to favour students without a diagnosed disability, and creating barriers for students of diagnosed disabilities for entry into a PHD program. Worse yet, never did complete the course work of the PHD program. 

The PHD student did have a second opportunity to pass, but fail on his second chance. The rules are there in the first place for a reason, and if PHD students are allow to retake the exams multiple times, what damage is being done to the initials behind a name, PHD?  Or will people start asking how many times did one take an exam, like some do with lawyers passing the bar?

I also believe whatever the teachers grade a student, should not be over- ruled by the principals, or for that matter school board staff. I mentioned school board staff. because once again my child’s report card has reduced grades, compared to the progress reports, which are always correct. It has been on going since grade 6, every report card where the grades are always lower, and at the end of the year, on the last day, the principal will have to entered the system, and produced a new report card with the correct grades. I have been given reasonable excuses, but even the current principal is suspecting, as I do suspect that someone at the board level is doing it. This time her English grade on the report card,  nosedived to a 65 % and on the progress report it is a 75 %. My youngest works very hard for her grades, follows the rules, respecting the evaluation rules, and does not try to take advantage of increasing marks due to her LD, like other students without a disability, seem to take full advantage.

At the end I trust a teacher’s evaluation, and have learned to have the grades check by the teacher, to ensure it is the same grade recorded by the teacher, and changes were not made at the higher levels. In the early grades, I suspect grades were increased, and now in the later grades, we seem to dealing with grades decreasing but not at the school level.

The teachers should have more say in grades, and if a principal or higher is over ruling, the process should be open and transparent, and also on report cards, indicating a change to grades by the over ruling of the upper levels.