I think it is important to, at a minimum, be cognizant of the possibility presented in the post, while at the same time, fostering collaboration and cooperation.

Art, thank you for your post. When I read it, I immediately thought about a blog post from Dan Meyer titled Five Lessons On Teaching From Angry Birds That Have Nothing Whatsoever To Do With Parabolas http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=9797. Specifically #3 Give useful and immediate feedback and #4 Make it easy to recover from failure. Those two points are the essence of my post.

Scott and Al. Please don't interprete my comments as babying students or not preparing them for life. I don't mean that at all. What I am suggesting is that if a student has demonstrated mastery of the academic content, that's what they content grade should reflect. If a student has "citizenship" issues, then "getting work in on time" should be included there. It should be possible to receive an "A" in Algebra II and a "D" in completes work on time. This will give both parents and learners a more honest reflection of what has and has not been mastered. I hear the "in the real world" argument frequently. Actually, in the real world we all live in, the quality of your work does overshadow some other factors, unless and until those factors begin present a larger problem. In the school setting for example, if end-of-term grades are due by noon on Friday, and for what ever reason, I don't get my grades turned in until 3:00 pm on Friday, I might be a stern glance from the registrar or possibly even a conversation with an administrator, but I don't get fired, or have my pay docked. If I show up 5 minutes late to an after school staff meeting I don't get sent to the cafeteria for a detention, I quietly get into the meeting and try to catch up. The real purpose of the post was to highlight how few zeros need to be recorded before even the possibility of passing the class has evaporated. Once the learner cannot see any path to success, they disconnect, or even worse, become chronic attendance or discipline problems. Reward students for academic achievement and then separately address citizenship.

Thanks Jeff. I especially like your last line - There should be no statue of limitations on achievement. I would love to use it in some future articles.