The North Carolina General Assembly is considering changing the grading scale used in state public schools– which will only harm its students and make them less competitive further down the road.

Current grading systems, nationwide, and in North Carolina, used a grade of 60-percent (D grade) as failing. However, since so many students are getting D’s apparently, the state legislature has decided to change the grading system. The new scale would change a failing grade to anything less than 40 percent– which is already an F grade.

The new scale would be:

• A: 100 to 85 percent
• B: 84 to 70 percent
• C: 69 to 55 percent
• D: 54 to 40 percent
• F: Anything below 40 percent.

The current grading system is:

• A: 100 to 90 percent
• B: 89 80 percent
• C: 79 to 70 percent
• D: 60 to 60 percent
• F: Anything below 59 percent.

The legislature is proposing up to a 20 PERCENT change in the grading system. This by other standards is called CHEATING.

School report cards from the 2017 school year have results for individual schools and counties. Wake County schools have just a 0.6 percent fail rate. Cumberland County has 1.2 percent fail rate. Durham County has 18 percent failure rate.

What the legislature may not realize is that students are failing for a reason– and will continue to fail– regardless of the grading system– unless the underlying cause is fixed.

No student earning 70-79 deserves a B. It’s not fair to students who actually earn B grades. And it’s not fair to the students who aren’t testing well.

The problem isn’t changing the grading– it’s changing the teaching and helping students to actually learn.

Perhaps the problem lies in the legislature that operates on “funny math” or “Common Core” math, which might explain their ludicrous thinking.

Residents of North Carolina should oppose this insanity. It only hurts their kids.