How to deal with bizarre situation with teacher, affecting daughter’s grades?

[gw186]

Summary:
Teacher of my daughter gave her a C on her final exam (all multiple choice, done on Canvas). My daughter asked only to see her Canvas report, the teacher refused, saying the exam questions and answers are confidential. Sch admin says they “checked”, but they can’t show us the report. What to do now?

Background: my daughter loves science and takes it seriously, and we were surprised when she told us she got a C (after studying for weeks) on her final exam. As the exam was all multiple choice and administered/ graded automatically by Canvas, it should have been straightforward to see the Canvas report.

But when my daughter approached her teacher about her score, the teacher refused to show her the Canvas report, saying that the exam questions and answers are confidential.

My daughter then asked if she could see her Canvas numerical score (not even the whole paper). The teacher also refused.

So after some back and forth, we approached the school admin.

The school admin said they “checked” with the teacher and everything is correct, but they also can’t show us the Canvas report, or even the Canvas numerical score.

What do you reckon is our best course of action right now? Not to put too dark of a picture on this, but my daughter tells me she thinks several of her and her classmates had their scores pushed down, and maybe the school is trying to cover things up, because if they change the score back for her, they probably have to do the same for others as well when the word gets out, and then it’s going to be a messy PR situation.

DDs 8, which means it is very important.

Not sure what your intentions are, continuing to mock someone's kid who may have been treated unfairly by her teacher because of her demographic

Things run in cycles and the people who mock others often end up in situations where they will be mocked themselves

If you don't have anything constructive to add, and think it's of no importance to you, what's the point of continuing to follow the thread so intently

Absolutely no one is mocking your kid. We are following along for the ride to see whether you post useful but not identifying information that will allow our help to be more direct.
For example there is no point in posters mentioning GDPR or Assessment for Learning if you are for example in the USA.
Don't forget OP, you are the one that posted for advice. Of course you don't need to give us info that will help us help you, but y'know it might help us help you? We can't even get any idea on how important this issue is with respect to educational advancement.

As I say though, it is up to you, but don't expect posters not to gently poke fun at you for being so concerned of being outed that you won't even say what continent you are in.

I am following this thread intently hoping that at some point there will be sufficient information that I could help and support based on my many years working with children and teachers. Unfortunately the thread is an information free zone.

How many 9 year olds are there on the Falkland Islands?

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I think this is the issue. OPs DD has probably done fine, but not better than other pupils.

Good on the Teacher.

As an aside, very few people feel completely confident about MCQ tests as it's easy to be tripped up.

My DD is in year 8 in a UK school. She has recently done a series of internal that are capped at grade 7 (out of 9) because the school are looking for progression as they go through the GCSE curriculum.

I'm not sure I care, but is this a similar scenario?

I'm sure Lisa will do just fine, Homer.--

Well going by the tone of some it seems they probably would say don't bother, but that's their opinion of what someone else should do, because they don't like it when someone else seems to be pushy (and to them it's always seen as "pushy" rather than reasonable if it involves another person's kid)

In my opinion, however, if you don't agree with a policy, especially one that doesn't make sense / is difficult to defend politically for them, given they seem to be prioritizing their own need to look good/ get bonuses, in that they are reverse engineering "progression" by deflating grades rather than truly giving out the accurate grade, then maybe it's time to consider voicing the need for a change, asking for an investigation into the grade distribution/ whether it's fair relative to comparable schools who are not artificially deflating grades. If you want to be really specific, look into who's getting the bonuses, what the incentives are in terms of monetary payouts or career progression points etc, in terms of the "progression" benchmarks. eg. are they getting 500 quid per student per 5% improvement in marks

It's like the old story of how when they paid people for catching/ turning in snakes to the authorities during an infestation, people eventually got the incentive to breed/ raise snakes instead, as a moneymaking operation. The program may have started with straightforward intentions, but soon got out of hand with incentives being twisted (pun somewhat intended)

I have a child, not a baby goat.

The rationale for not grading not giving 13 year olds full GCSE grades is because they are not working at that level. The exams are easier in younger years and so the grades are capped.

As it happens the (non-selective state) school is one of the best 200 in the UK and sends plenty of students to Oxbridge, RG unis and into medicine and dentistry. They must be doing something right.

I don't know but I imagine they would be working within the UK education system so to tell us UK would not identify her.

Since I don't know any teacher in the UK who receives a bonus of any kind I have come to the conclusion that you are not in the UK. I hope this is not too identifying.

I also don't understand the responses.

My understanding of the OP's question is that the scores were given verbally by Mr Science. DD doubts they are correct. Parents email school office, Gemma from Admin asks Mr Science who says it's a C. That is not confirmation, that is Mr Science saying that. No one sent a screenshot of the results. Why are they hiding.

DD is black/trans/foreign...... whatever usually triggers MNers, so OP is asking here what to do next as they are suspicious, but do not want these triggers to sway answers. Maybe someone has had a similar experience, and did ABC to get the screenshot. Or maybe as OP said, there are other factors aside from discrimination in the above sense like incentives like OP has explained in the previous post.

From the goady responses of controlling/helicopter parent, child not as clever, and other pops, I can see why OP would view factors like age, country etc as nothing more than gossip for speculation. This is mostly a UK forum, so just answer what a parent would do in this situation to see the results. Not state your imaginations of how you think the OP wants higher grades for their child.

Since I don't know any teacher in the UK who receives a bonus of any kind I have come to the conclusion that you are not in the UK. I hope this is not too identifying.

Not too sure OP was referring to a monetary bonus, nor did they state the kind of school.

How can it under any circumstances be OK to test and grade someone and not allow them to review how they were graded? That's just fundamentally wrong.

OMG. I'm presuming you've all already said it, but...

Most people on this site are from the UK. The UK grading system doesn't work like this. We can't advise you without more/better details.

If you are in the UK, you are a nutter. If not, you are ridiculous for not having said so.

Thank you, voice of reason right here

I knew if i used other descriptors more specific than ‘demographics’, it’d perhaps be too triggering (and my intention wasn’t to be divisive or anything, because surely in other situations/ other people’s children’s schools perhaps things are reversed).

I also didn’t want to be inflammatory by saying which group is which, because people would then project their opinions on which real world demographic group is the ‘bad guy’ in this instance. Suffice to say that some of the people who made the biggest positive difference in my own life are of “different demographics”, so I can’t in good conscience say anything that in a public forum that might be misconstrued as fanning the flames for villifying any particular ‘demographic group’.

Only that I think the teacher, in this case, has treated the groups differently, which along with the other factors, made me want to find out the truth, because they shouldn’t be doing that, not in some multiple choice exam that has right or wrong science answers.

It’s good to talk about this in the forum. As a parent I try to be strong for my daughter but sometimes in awkward situations like this it really helps to have a place where so many people can pitch in.

Yes, there are some things which shouldn't, and cannot, be 'discretionary' based on someone's individual attitude towards students

It’s a multiple choice science exam for goodness sake, why can’t they just grade and report the grade accurately and provide evidence/ documentation for the numerical score when asked to

When I was growing up, people were transparent even without being asked

Take your own advice and be transparent then.

What age / grade / year is your child?

Why do you think there is a 'program' or 'policy' that has disadvantaged your DD?

Can't believe this is still going. The DD just needs to work harder next time and OP needs to get over it

I find the preoccupation with demographics and your certainty that your daughter must have done better than children of a "certain demographic" pretty gross.

Nah, there is one demographic of students I don't much like, the badly behaved ones. And there is certainly a demographic of parents that I can't stand - the helicopters. When those two demographics intercept there is definitely trouble.

God op, when it’s proven your kid just did a bit crap and didn’t feel able to tell you, had to come up with this nonsense, to justify her c grade to you, how will you cope? I’d be mortified buying into this.

and how much pressure is the poor girl under that she’s going here rather than just admitting she’s struggling with the subject..

I'm surprised by the harshness of responses on here. OP already laid out the pros and cons of investigating further. Whatever the outcome it will put doubts to rest.

I would be pouring cold water on any suggestion of demographic discrimination in your daughter's mind though and focus on your case and the facts alone.

The harshness isn't to do with the situation, it's to do with the fact that OP is being infuriatingly obtuse for no reason whatsoever. It's unbelievably frustrating when you feel you'd have something helpful to contribute if only the OP would answer the most basic of questions

’If you want to be really specific, look into who's getting the bonuses, what the incentives are in terms of monetary payouts or career progression points etc, in terms of the "progression" benchmarks. eg. are they getting 500 quid per student per 5% improvement in marks

It's like the old story of how when they paid people for catching/ turning in snakes to the authorities during an infestation, people eventually got the incentive to breed/ raise snakes instead, as a moneymaking operation.’

OK. 😵‍💫 so when did teachers ever get paid on that basis? And I haven’t heard the snakes story. We can safely assume OP is not from Ireland. 😆

Australia is my guess. Though OP may well be writing from another planet for all the sense this is making.