Question for the OP @gw186 : has the teacher already rejected this (because you say in your first post that the teacher says that “the exam questions and answers are confidential”)? Or are you assuming that to be the case based on what was implied but not specifically stated?
Like I said the teacher said the questions and answers are “confidential” and they can’t show it to us either
Not even if my daughter just goes through her own exam to see what was wrong, etc
They can’t even produce the Canvas auto-graded numerical score report to demonstrate the # correct they reported to my daughter verbally is the actual # correct as marked by computer on Canvas (they muted the score report landing page on Canvas & muted even the numeric score)
So according to your plan in the non-zero possibility that the teacher indeed made an “error” and is intentionally not correcting it when called out, you think they won’t just make up stuff to try and brush people off? eg. if they lowered the grades even 10-15%, that’s enough to move from A to C. Then you ask them what your daughter can “improve” on without seeing the actual score report, or any real documentation from the marked exam. Then they just brush you off with “more mastery of concepts” etc etc - what’s the point of the dog and pony show without seeing the actual report to verify the key question - has the teacher been downgrading the small group of students/ my daughter?
We’re asking for the documentation or the computer score report, which should have been made available on Canvas at the landing page anyways, but the teacher simply muted it and reported the individual students’ scores to them verbally
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Perhaps I am missing something.
I am not sure what purpose is served in saying that the OP is advancing a conspiracy theory. OP is simply a parent wanting to see the results of a test. Not the grade, but the actual results (right or wrong).
If the school/school district has no formal policy prohibiting this (and this needs to be confirmed), it is a very reasonable request, and one that I would make as a parent. How else is OP’s D going to learn if she doesn’t see the errors she made? If this is done in a school office and there is no way to copy the test and/or answers, how exactly is the confidentiality of the test compromised?
If it is done in a non-accusatory manner and to the extent that there is no policy prohibiting it, simply asking to see the test and D’s responses to learn from mistakes is entirely reasonable to me.
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The ship has sailed on “non-accusatory”.
OP- every time you use the word “documentation” the stakes get higher- and the focus goes AWAY from your D’s learning and towards your own needs/goals/intentions.
Stop using the word “documentation”. I had an employee on my team who through an administrative mess-up, had one of his benefits mis-calculated. He went full on hostile, asking for “documentation” and threatening to “take it to the top”. It was a clerical error.
I went into action immediately- as in five minutes after he told me about the problem. The problem got fixed a few weeks later (he kept yelling “it’s only a keystroke and I need proof” but reality is nothing is “only” a keystroke, someone needs to sign off on the change, and that someone wasn’t me), etc.
He burnt a lot of bridges. Every time he insisted on “documentation” or “proof” or “I need a full airing of what went wrong” he was essentially implying that a colleague was lying, was incompetent or both. His “fact-finding” showed that it was an honest mistake- which was corrected, with zero cost to him, except for his blood pressure and the time he spent emailing colleagues accusing them of sandbagging him, covering up the error, etc.
Kind of sad. Would have been so much easier to walk into my office and say “I think there’s been a mistake, can you help me?” rather than impugn my integrity, essentially declare our entire benefits team a bunch of losers, etc.
So stop asking for documentation. Have your D ask for help. That’s what teachers like to do- help.
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How? OP has a hunch, but that’s about it, and I don’t see where OP shared that hunch with anyone but on CC. OP has CLEARLY stated if they see the results and it is a C, so be it.
I actually find it quite incredible a parent and most importantly a student is not entitled to see the results of a test. I am sure that if I cared enough in high school etc. I would have been able to see any test I wanted. And that includes kindergarten all the way to my last exam in law school.
This is not the SATs…even there, the College Board gives you a breakdown of which kind of questions were missed on both Math and EBRW.
My Spider-Sense is tingling, as I start from the basic view that there should be full disclosure by schools to parents/students. But as OP clearly stated in one of the earliest posts in this thread, if everything is cool, then no issues. If it is done in a non-accusatory manner to the school (and I don’t see anything in any of OP’s posts to suggest otherwise), what bridge is being burned?
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How is a student supposed to learn if there is never an opportunity to see what you got wrong and understand your mistakes?
If it is a college final exam to show you either mastered the material or not, that is one thing. But the whole point of high school is to keep learning and progressing.
Re-using tests without ever allowing students to go over them sounds like a horrible system to me. In fact, most of my kids’ teachers go over tests with the entire class afterward.
I have also heard of many cases where Canvas improperly graded tests because of incorrect inputs. Sometimes students are given different versions of the test with questions in different orders to prevent cheating; if the answer key is entered incorrectly for one version, it can skew results.
I do think it is not helpful to be confrontational. Better to go in confused and seeking more info — like noted above, some specificity on the subject matter that was not mastered, some explanation of what checking was done to confirm the grade (did they just confirm the number marked correct on the scoresheet or did they confirm the answer key was correct, etc.?) Less “prove she really performed that poorly” and more “help us figure out what went wrong here so it doesn’t happen again; we all thought she was well-prepared and had mastered the material and now we are seeking specifics so we can know what different to do next time and make sure there weren’t any clerical/input mistakes.”
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OP - You said way up thread that your child will have this teacher again next year. I’d be cautious in your approach with both this teacher and the administration. As you continue to point out, teachers are fallible and human. You want this educator on your team. Hopefully you are approaching the school in a different way than you are communicating here (where it is perfectly fine to vent ; )).
Also curious if this is for an AP science class? If so, acing the AP test will make a lower class grade not as important.
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The best conspiracies leave no evidence.
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Yeah, it’s interesting how that is…
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Only for certain test dates will the actual questions and answers be shown, presumably the ones where the tests will be retired instead of reused afterward.
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I didn’t say actual questions. I said “which kind of questions”.
The point is that even the College Board is more open than this school.
As other posters have said, I would definitely NOT be confrontational, but it is the school that is acting unreasonably here IMHO.
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Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by human stupidity.
I don’t know who said that (sounds very philosophical) but it has helped me understand some difficult situations. Conspiracy theories are titillating and just like gossip have a way of getting around. My guess (based on similar situations with my kids and Canvas) is that the teacher mucked up. Either in entering the questions and answers into the software or in formulating the questions and answers. Not going over solutions of the questions on the test is pedagogically circumspect to say the least.
What I tell my kids is that it is statistically impossible to not come across bad teachers/professors along the way. They just make you appreciate the good ones all the more. I hope you can at least get some answers and that your kid can move forward. I still remember a physics teacher in high school that did not like my looks (too weird/alternative for his liking) that told me I would never make it in science/engineering (how mean can you be, right?). I have an undergrad and PhD in engineering and even back then I knew he was wrong.
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You piqued my interest: it’s Hanlon’s Razor Hanlon's razor - Wikipedia.
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I don’t understand the part about “pushing down” a “certain demographic.” I understand the OP is being intentionally vague but I honestly have no idea what this might refer to.
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Just a thought - is their a chance the key is wrong? Like off by one or something like that? How does it get imputed to canvas?
Could one ask for a manual correction/not from a key?
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Now I’m intrigued! I know of Occam’s razor (comes in handy when trying to understand wacky experimental results) but not Hanlon’s razor. I’ll look into it!
(It seems philosophers ponder while shaving?)
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I love that! I think it is very true. I really don’t think this situation comes close to any kind of conspiracy. It’s a waste of time going down that rabbit hole.
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A likely scenario is:
- The teacher is reusing tests and is overly paranoid about leaks to the point of compromising education (i.e. not allowing students to see what they got correct and incorrect afterward, and also preventing verification that there were no grading mistakes).
- The teacher and school administration probably got the impression that the student is a grade grubber and/or the parent is one of the pushy parents they dislike having to deal with and/or the next request will be from a lawyer, so they are intentionally stonewalling (which makes the student and parent more suspicious and more prone to believing conspiracy theories about it).
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I am still not getting any explanation about the “certain demographic” possibly being “pushed down.”
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I write canvas tests and quizzes and it is very easy to mistakenly tell the computer the wrong correct answer. For multiple choice, the teacher has to list the correct answer first, then the wrong answers and then canvas shows them in random order to the student. Fill in the blank and numerical responses are tricky to set up so that canvas grades them correctly. I often start by looking at the best student’s answers first to see what he or she got wrong and that alerts me to some of my mistakes.
Agree student could ask about questions marked wrong and teacher might notice mistakes at that point.
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