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Rule 1: Life is not fair; get used to it.
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will not make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice president with a car phone until you "earn" both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have tenure.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger-flipping; they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you screw up, it's not your parents' fault so don't whine about your mistakes. Learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way paying your bills, cleaning your room, and listening to you tell them how idealistic you are. So before you save the rain forest from the blood-sucking parasites of your parents' generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades, they'll give you as many times as you want to get the right answer. This, of course, bears not the slightest resemblance to anything in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off, and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is not real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
With that in mind, here's the article:
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New School Rule: Skip Homework Still Get Grade
POSTED: 8:47 am CST January 15, 2008
UPDATED: 3:50 pm CST January 15, 2008
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Students who don't hand in homework won't receive a zero anymore under new rules for a new semester that started on Monday at Council Bluffs Community Schools.
Students and teachers are encouraged to use the new grading techniques. School officials said that under the old regime, a student who received a zero had a tough time recovering a grade in the course. Administrators said that by making the failing gap smaller, students still have a chance to bounce back and pass at the end of the semester, even after a mistake.
Superintendent Dr. Marth Bruckner said she has seen many students start a new year rebelling.
"We don't want to send the message to kids, as we have done in some classes, that after you have failed in this class for four weeks, you have no chance of passing at the semester," Bruckner said.
In Council Bluffs, each grade range has constituted 10 points, so an A is a grade from 90 to 100, a B is from 80 to 90 etc. An F has ranged from zero to 60.
Last week, Bruckner said she visited with high school staff and recommended using similar intervals, so that on the 100-point scale, an F would range from 50 to 60 instead of zero to 60.
"Some teachers are really wrestling with, 'I don't want to give them 50 out of 100 points,' and to those teachers I say, 'Fine, you don't have to. Go to a different grading scale, like 5-4-3-2-1-0,'" Bruckner said. "We're not saying give them half credit. We're saying, give them the F. Just don't kill them with the F."
Parents are getting used to the new recommendations.
"I have an 8- and a 10-year-old," said parent Jodi Brown. "And as they excel through school, I would rather have them be held accountable for their actions. If they don't turn in an assignment, I would think they deserve a zero for not completing it."
"I think it's great to give them a second chance to make up for it," said Julie Michalski. "I don't want to see anyone fail, but they need to be held accountable for their work."
Right now, the new grading idea is only recommended for the high schools -- Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. Use is left to teachers, but Bruckner said the hope is that departments will work together so that everyone agrees on the same scale.
Gretna uses something Superintendent Dr. Kevin Riley called the "do your work" policy. Students who don't hand in something, or don't pass with a grade of 70 percent or greater, must come in before and after school to complete and pass that assignment. Riley said the policy has been used for 25 years, and in that time, the failure rate has decreased from 10 percent to just a handful of failing grades at the high school. He said the policy has also cut down on behavior issues.