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Florida teacher fired for giving zeros to students who didn't turn in assignments

The lowest grade that teachers are allowed to give students is a 50.

Diane Tirado/Facebook

Left: Teacher Diane Tirado. Right: The note she left for students after being fired.

If you're of the mind that kids today are being coddled and not properly prepared for the real world, well, you might want to buckle up for this one. The story out of a public school in Florida has parents and teachers alike up in arms.

A Florida teacher was fired for giving her students zeros for missing assignments. Diane Tirado has been a teacher for years. Most recently, she was an eighth-grade history teacher at Westgate K-8 School in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Diane recently gave her students two weeks to complete an Explorer notebook project, but several students simply didn't hand it in. Since there was zero work done, Diane gave them zeros.

She got fired for it.

schools, teachers, education, grades, students, parents Michael Scott from The Office saying "What?"Giphy

The elementary school has a rule called the “no zero policy."

The lowest possible grade that teachers can give students is a 50, even if they don't turn anything in. That means that an extremely poor completed assignment is worth the same number of points as no assignment at all.

Hardly seems fair, right? Westgate is far from the only school that has such a policy, however.

whiteboard, education, classroom, teacher, middle school, 8th grade A message written on the whiteboard for her students after Diane Tirado was firedDiane Tirado/Facebook

It's a rule that Diane, unsurprisingly, does not agree with. After she was fired for disobeying, she left her students a charming goodbye message on the whiteboard.

"Bye kids. Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life. I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50 percent for not handing anything in. Love, Mrs. Tirado"

The scale, as outlined by the school, reads as follows:

A = 90 to 100
B = 80 to 89
C = 70-79
D = 60-69
F = 50-59

Diane later shared the story on Facebook, hoping to spread awareness about the school's policy.

“A grade in Mrs. Tirado's class is earned," she said.

“I'm so upset because we have a nation of kids that are expecting to get paid and live their life just for showing up and it's not real."

Diane's post has gone viral, and most commenters agree with her position – it's not fair to hand out grades for work that doesn't exist.

No zero policies are common in many schools, and teachers notoriouslyhate them. But it's at least worth considering why they exist. Some educators say it's because when a student earns a zero, it's very difficult for them to ever recover their grade in that class. In other words, it may be too harsh. Others argue that, if you don't want a zero, don't turn in nothing! Getting an earned-zero is a great way to learn to at least try.

A follow up statement from the school stated: "Ms. Tirado was released from her duties as an instructor because her performance was deemed sub-standard and her interactions with students, staff, and parents lacked professionalism and created a toxic culture on the school’s campus. ... During her brief time of employment at West Gate, the school fielded numerous student and parent complaints as well as concerns from colleagues. Based on new information shared with school administrators, an investigation of possible physical abuse is underway."

However, school representatives did not deny the existence of the no zero policy, and Tirado claims the school engaged in a smear campaign after she became a "whistleblower" on their policies. She's currently considering legal action against the district.

Still, the debate over the grading policy rages on.

“The reason I took on this fight was because it was ridiculous. Teaching should not be this hard," Diane said.

This article originally appeared 6 years ago.

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Public versus private school — a study found just one factor can make all the difference.

Many parents who want the best education for their children turn to private schools, assuming they will lead their kids to greater success.

At first glance, some data appears to back up that notion. The National Association of Independent Schools and Gallup found that private schools tend to have a greater percentage of graduates going on to higher education, and also tend to attend selective colleges and universities. And a new study shows that overall, children who have attended private schools had better outcomes in nearly all assessed areas of adolescence.

For many parents, this prospect justifies spending thousands of dollars per year in private school tuition. They also bolster support for voucher systems, which distribute public education funds to parents to spend on private schools if they so choose.

Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images.

However, a recent study that showed better private school outcomes has a huge caveat.

When family wealth is factored out, the difference in private and public school outcomes disappears entirely.

Researchers at the University of Virginia found that when socioeconomic factors were controlled for in the study, all of the advantages of private school were negated. The study also found "no evidence to suggest that low-income children or children enrolled in urban schools benefited more from private school enrollment."

Kids from the same socioeconomic class have similar outcomes, whether they attend public school or private school. In other words, it's the ability to afford private school that makes the difference, not private school itself. Since private school attendees tend to come from wealthier families, they generally have better outcomes.

But money, not the educational approach or quality of instruction offered in private schools, appears to be the driving factor.

Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images.

Parents choose private schools for diverse reasons, and choice is important. But not at the expense of public education.

Not all parents who choose to send their kids to private school do so for academic reasons. Some want their kids to have a religious element to their education. Some favor a specific educational philosophy that can only be found in a private school setting. Having a variety of educational options is a good thing.

However, if a parent feels compelled to send their kids to a private school over a public school for academic reasons, the data doesn't appear to be in their favor. And using such arguments to support voucher programs is disingenuous.

Secretary of Education Betsy Devos proposed an education budget in February that allocated $1 billion to private school vouchers and other school choice initiatives, and slashed $3.6 billion from the Department of Education. "So many of America's poorest children — especially African American and Hispanic children — attend failing public schools that afford them little hope of fulfilling their great potential," President Trump said in his budget summary.

But if our government's job is to make sure that children have equal access to quality education, we need more support for publicly funded neighborhood schools, not less. If private schools aren't proven to offer a better quality education, then taking money from public schools to provide private school vouchers doesn't make sense.

This data reinforces the fact that issues in our educational system largely stem from economic inequality.

Educational opportunity starts at home, and homes and communities that are struggling are automatically at a disadvantage. Though improving public schools is important, perhaps addressing economic inequality in general would do more for U.S. education than school choice programs or public education overhauls — and would ensure that more children reach their full potential.

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New York City has the biggest school system in the country. It just made lunch free.

Thousands of New York City public school students are about to find out that there is such a thing as a free lunch.

Carmen Fariña (left) with city first lady Chirlane McCray and New York City public school students. Photo by Susan Watts-Pool/Getty Images.

At a Sept. 6 press conference, Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced that the city's "Free School Lunch for All" program, currently available to 75% of New York City public school students, will be made available to every student in the system beginning this academic year.

"Free School Lunch for All will provide financial relief to families and ensure all students are receiving nutritious meals so that they can succeed in the classroom and beyond," Fariña said.

The expansion in the country's largest public school system means an additional 200,000 students will be able to eat for free.

New York City joins Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and other major municipal school districts that have begun offering universal free lunch in the last five years, thanks to the Department of Agriculture's Community Eligibility Provision, which collects system-wide data to determine need for subsidized meal options, preventing individual families from having to apply.

Food insecurity is often hidden in plain sight in wealthy New York City, affecting up to 37% of residents in some neighborhoods.

A 2014 report found the average South Bronx resident involuntarily missed more than 35 meals per year.

"For so many students, school is the only place where they have access to a nutritious meal," New York Assembly member Linda B. Rosenthal said in a press release. "Providing free lunch to the City’s 1.1 million public school students will ensure that their bodies are fed so that their brains can be nourished."

Better access to nutritious food has been found to increase school performance.

Studies of subsidized school breakfast programs, which have been around in various forms since the 1960s, have found that participating students demonstrate improved behavior and concentration and are less likely to repeat a grade. An August 2017 study found that improving the nutritional content of school lunches led to a small increase in test scores.

"While adults may be able to focus and concentrate better with poorer nutrition, with kids, they cannot necessarily control that, and they might be more distracted and less able to sit and learn if their basic needs such as sleep and nutrition aren't getting met," Tanya Altmann, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told CNN in a March interview.

The city is inviting those kids to chow down — without having to ask.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Photo by Susan Watts-Pool/Getty Images.

"This helps New York City’s working families who struggled to pay $300 a year for school lunch, and it eliminates the stigma that we know kept some children from eating," said Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers.

Even on Taco Tuesday.

(Especially on Taco Tuesday.)

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These Teacher Appreciation Week tributes are ridiculously heartwarming.

It's Teacher Appreciation Week, and students, parents, and administrators all across America are stepping up to honor the people who devote their careers to enriching minds and shaping lives.

Educators from Maine to Alaska walked into their schools to find their desks, doors, and hallways covered with messages of love, support, and thanks.

The tributes were about as lovely — and creative — as you'd expect.

Some teachers were showered with gifts.

Others were showered with ... nachos.

Some students upped their fruit game.

And others upped their decoration game ... like these fourth-graders in Wisconsin.

Kids at a Las Vegas school honored their teachers with a dance routine:

A North Carolina school created a Walk of Fame for its star educators.

"I felt super special," says Emily Francis, an ESL teacher.  "Reading every teacher's names made me feel part of a team making a difference and changing lives."

Students from a Missouri elementary school went classic and delivered flowers to their teachers.

"A parent stood at the door and gave each kid a flower as they walked in, after they had already delivered an empty 'vase' (popcorn bucket) to each of us before the day started," says Jen Bearden, a first-grade teacher at the school. "I was then greeted with 21 smiles and thank-yous to begin my week."

And a Baltimore-area school won the day by treating its teachers to the greatest gift of all: free pizza.

Meanwhile, hundreds of adults posted on Twitter to pay tribute to the educators who shaped their lives:

Americans clearly appreciate their teachers — but as a country, we sometimes have a funny way of showing it.

A 2016 study published by the Economic Policy Institute found that public school teachers earn 17% less than other college-educated professionals on average.

Teacher salaries have actually decreased since the mid-'90s, when adjusted for inflation, despite them working 10+ hour days, in many cases.

Truly acknowledging our teachers' centrality in shaping our lives and the lives of our children should mean paying them what they're worth and helping them do their jobs effectively.

That means supporting teachers' right to a strong union and supporting their efforts to negotiate higher salaries. It can also mean donating classroom supplies, which many teachers have to provide themselves, or volunteering in your local school.

For next Teacher Appreciation Week, it's on us to help give America's educators the best gifts of all: support in the classroom, adequate time off, and a fair wage.

Though ... I'm sure they'd appreciate the free pizza again too.

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