Reader Responses

Most of the recently adopted rules created by Dallas Independent School District staff are simply ludicrous. If these rules are maintained as a matter of policy, then many Dallas ISD graduates will be unprepared for the shock of the ‘real world.”

If an assignment is given to be completed by a specific due date and a student turns it in late, even by a day, then their grade for the assignment should reflect a penalty. Along these lines, if a student elects not to turn anything in for the same assignment, then they should receive a zero grade for zero effort. Any homework assignment grades should also count toward a student’s average, regardless of whether it helps or hurts.

If you apply these rules to real life, you can see how it relates. When you are employed, and the boss asks you to complete a task by a due date, he will not simply ignore the fact that you were late. He will probably keep a closer eye on your work in the future. Likewise, if you simply don’t do an assigned task, you could realistically end up jobless. Your immediate boss won’t consult his boss usually, and your employer won’t talk to your parents, spouse or anyone else except you about your work.

To compare the importance of homework, you could easily look at lawyers. Many lawyers tend to work on some cases overnight, especially high profile ones, to help them be prepared. If an attorney doesn’t do this occasionally, they will not be very successful. This could probably be similar in many white collar professions.
The only rule which I would agree with is retaking a flunked test. Although testing is a generally accepted assessment of knowledge it is also generally accepted that many students don’t test well all the time.

Even I would occasionally have a bad testing day in school, though when I did retake a test; I usually did better, either by studying harder or being more relaxed when I took a test. Mabank ISD did an outstanding job with me without making school a “cake walk.”

Billy J. Baugh
Tyler