Reporting my English teacher. Real scenarios, no lie.

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>I would like to take this time to address an issue i've been having for three years now with my English teacher at my high school. I feel like I have been "screwed" out of the proper grade along with a list of students that I can think of at the top of my head. When you hear a random HS student claiming they have been "screwed" out of a grade, you're probably thinking that I'm a whiner (I've never whined about grades until now). I will now write out various scenarios to show how exactly various students of THIS teacher have been cheated out of getting proper grades. Note: I am currently a senior at my high school and have had this same English teacher from 10th grade to present.</p>

<p>Scenario 1: In our AP English language class, we were only given essay prompts as assignments. Everyday when we walked into the class, there would be a prompt waiting for us, either from a novel we were currently reading or from previous AP tests. It was like that everyday for both semesters. My teacher had this thing we liked to call "The Wall of Fame" in which he would literally put your answer to a prompt on the wall if it was good. He graded prompts on a scale of 0-4, 4 being awesome, 3 being great, etc... He would always put up the "3" or "4" papers on the wall until the entire wall got flooded with papers. In this class, there was someone, let's call her Mrs. Rodriguez. She almost never had a single paper on this "wall" for both semesters. Maybe 1 or 2 per semester. She also happened to be going to the same gym as the teacher was and would meet with him frequently. You would literally hear him jokingly flirt with her about the clothes she wore in that gym. I know for a fact that me and several others had many of these essays on the "wall" that were of 3-4 quality. I admit that me and the others had our bad days and did a ton of 2's, and rarely a 1. It came to our final report card and Mrs. Rodriguez magically happened to get a B in the class without even having a single "wall" essay while certain people who had a ton of "wall" essays got C's, and even one D (the D will go into scenario 2). It's very interesting that a girl who never wrote a good essay the whole year magically gets a B in both semesters, while others got C's in the class. Oh and just a heads up, she did not pass the AP Language test while a majority of us did, some of which happened to get a whole letter grade lower than her.</p>

<p>Scenario 2- There was only one person in our whole class that got a D and that person was of black descent, who happened to be the only black person in our class. I noticed everyday, the teacher would criticize how this person's handwriting was "sloppy" or "poorly written" and that there was no way it could be read, because it was considered "illegible." I find it interesting that someone who has very keen vision could not decipher this person's handwriting while a majority of us were able to read his writing. I just find it interesting.... you can decide.</p>

<p>Scenario 3- Unlike the first two scenarios, this event is a chain from 10th grade Honors English. There were a select few in our 10th grade class in which this teacher recommended to take the AP English Language test in their sophomore year. I was one of them, along with I'd say about 10 others, out of 60 students. I failed to pass the AP test in my sophomore year since I only got a 2. However, a few were successful due to their passing score of a 3. One of the students who passed, we'll call him Steve and another one, we'll call her Mrs. Bear. Steve and Mrs. Bear both got 3's on the Language test in their sophomore year. We just so happened to get the same teacher for our AP English Language course. Our teacher was generous in the sense that he was much more lenient to you if you happened to get a passing score. Steve was a disciplined student who still worked hard in AP Language, despite already passing the test. He wanted to get a 5, which by the way, he ended up getting by the end of 11th grade. Mrs. Bear knew the teacher very well. She would give him food, talk about her problems, and even discuss shopping with him. Which brings me to the scenario, she would either spend everyday sleeping in that class or talking with the other classmates while we were sitting there doing our timed prompts. Steve did the prompts with us and was extremely skilled in his rhetoric. In the end, Mrs. Bear and Steve both happened to get an A. I am not lying when I say that Mrs. Bear was sleeping and/or talking with her friends during the classtime. IT REALLY DID HAPPEN. So here we have Steve, who worked consistently hard to get that A while someone who just sat there and didn't do squat just because she got a 3, got the same grade. Fair? You decide.</p>

<p>Anyways, the reason I wrote such a long post is because I want you to tell me whether you agree that this grading system is completely unfair and biased towards certain students and whether it is possible to report him, considering that I really do not have any evidence that it was biased since we never got any of our work back. They are all kept in his records. So, is there a way I can report this jacka**? I don't want this person rigging grades and screwing hard-working people from getting into the college of their choice.</p>

2

<p>I've had much worse before.</p>

<p>I suggest that you get in good with the teacher. Work smart, not hard. :)</p>

3

<p>Wow. Taht's horrible. I think it's definately worth mentioning, but I don't know how much you can do about it.</p>

4

<p>If he's in a teacher union, good luck with getting any disciplinary action on him.</p>

5

<p>I don't think anyone would side with the teacher in this case.</p>

<p>You should report the racism to a principal. If there are enough witnesses, I mean, blatant racism is a pretty objective thing. He'd probably get in trouble.</p>

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<p>The racism should be easy to prove. Depending on whether your from a liberal or conservative area will determine whether he'll get in trouble for that or not. An English teacher at my school got fired because he failed an African-American student in 10th grade English. I know the kid, he can't construct a sentence and was a transfer student from the Detroit school district. It's not his fault, but he didn't deserve to pass the class and the teacher graded him fairly. If she can get fired over that your teachers should surely get fired.</p>

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<p>psh...i've tried complaining about these kinds of things before (blatant racism etc.)...it NEVER works. as someone before me said, the teachers' union has the school administration by the throat.</p>

8

<p>Racism is not easy to prove...</p>

<p>For all we know the kid in question really does have ****ty handwriting.</p>

9

<p>Sounds more like the common things that happen every now and then that (no offense) a whiny student chalks up to bias. There's nothing that can't be explained away, there.</p>

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<p>first of all, you're making it seem as if the essays are worth 100% of your grade. I doubt they are and are probably worth a medium/large portion. It could be very well true that while Mrs. Rodriguez did not write excellent essays that did not get hung up on the wall, she aced everything else she did in that class. Also, some kids have it better than others. I remember having to work my tail off in AP Bio and study multiple hours for tests and still get C+'s....while some of the kids simply glanced their notes before class and got A's. Did that mean that I deserved a better grade than they? No.</p>

<p>On the other hand, things like this happen everyday and so you just have to deal with them. I don't see how this system is biased.</p>

11

<p>You can try reporting them, I, as many others probably, feel that this teacher sounds horrible. However, I think that reporting him will not be successful. It is difficult to prove that the favors that one girl he flirted with, and the other two who passed the test their sophomore year, without access to ALL their academic grades. I agree with thecalcobra that it seems unlikely that a teacher would base his grades solely off of writing prompts. You would need almost every person in his class to complain, with their parents, to the administration about this teacher for them to even recognize it.</p>

<p>The racism, however, is a different matter entirely. But the person that needs to report it, to add legitimacy, is the offended man, not you.</p>

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<p>what did scenario 2 get on the AP lang. test?</p>

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<p>hm...yea this stuff happens a lot, but usually you don't get stuck with the same teacher for three years.. that sucks..</p>

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<p>I agree, this really is a bad situation. Report him, if you want. But, unfortunately, nothing is overtly blatant, save maybe the racism. Honestly, I'm really sorry that you're stuck in such a bad situation, but scenarios 1 and 3 aren't really ....unfair. Of course, this is all my opinion.</p>

<p>Talk to the principal. That's the only way you can do anything.</p>

15

<p>I'd like to know why you didn't just switch classes. Is that the only AP Lang teacher at your school?</p>

<p>And don't give me any of the "Administration wouldn't let me" crud. Because if you have your parents call, they HAVE to let you. High school common sense.</p>

<p>I sympathize for your troubles...I've had bad teachers (who hasn't?). But really...even if you do report him, there's not a whole lot you can do without concrete proof.</p>

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<p>I agree with thecalccobra in that you sound whiny.</p>

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<p>@calccobra - I am not lying when I said the essays were worth 100% of the grade, that is literally what we got every single day. It was purely essays only. We did not even go over the multiple-choice for the AP test at all. 100%of the grades were essays, I am not kidding you. The only different things we had in that class were the novels..(Scarlet Letter, the Stranger, etc..) Only difference it made was the different prompts we got on the board. So in you defending this person, there's really nothing she could have done to get a B since every grade we got was based solely on "wall" essays.</p>

<p>@You'llsee - He got a 2.</p>

<p>@sevitagen- There were people that attempted to complain. One of them even sent their father to the school and he argued over the grade his child got. He even went to the administrator. In the end though, there was nothing he could do to suspend him and on top of that, the teacher made the child's life pretty much hell since he would never answer any questions he had regarding text or help him in any way. For the second time, the prompts really did count for 100% of the grade. His motto was "the free response section counts for more than half of the test. Which is why I will consistently assign you prompts in order to meet the time limit while still earning an 8 or 9 on each essay prompt on the AP test." I give him some credit since I already know that I bombed the multiple-choice section, possibly getting a 0 on it, while still managing to pass the test on essays alone. I just feel that he's not a proper grader..</p>

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<p>@hisgracefillsme - In our school, there were only two AP language teachers. The other AP language teacher only offered the class during 1st period, while my teacher offered it during 3rd period. If I were to take the other AP Language class, I wouldn't have been able to take AP Chemistry which was also only offered during 1st period. It explains why my entire AP chemistry class only had 12 people while the other AP language class had 30-40 people.</p>

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<p>based on the responses i've gotten, it looks like there's really nothing I can do to change this predicament. Hopefully the colleges I apply to will look at my AP score compared to those "certain" people and probably sympathize. I'm sorry for wasting a thread I guess.</p>

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<p>that sucks big time.</p>

<p>And racism is easy to proof, you just need a ton of people in your class to agree that it was racism and report. Do what you can, file a claim or whatever. </p>

<p>In most of my classes I try to relate to the teacher somewhat to be likable, not just to the point of being a teacher's pet because I think that's just flat-out unfair. In my APUSH class there's a girl who is a huge fan of the same college the APUSH teacher went to, and she wears the shirts all the time so the teacher knows she's a fan. She definately has an adavatage when it comes to grades and is the teacher's pet.</p>