Professor fails students, loses job

From InsideHigherEd.com:

Who is to blame when students fail? If many students fail — a majority even — does that demonstrate faculty incompetence, or could it point to a problem with standards?

Here's what allegedly happened: Steven D. Aird lost his job teaching biology at Norfolk State University because he failed too many students. To make things murkier:

A subtext of the discussion is that Norfolk State is a historically black university with a mission that includes educating many students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The university suggests that Aird — who is white — has failed to embrace the mission of educating those who aren't well prepared. But Aird — who had backing from his department and has some very loyal students as well — maintains that the university is hurting the very students it says it wants to help. Aird believes most of his students could succeed, but have no incentive to work as hard as they need to when the administration makes clear they can pass regardless.

Yikes. According to The Virginian-Pilot, 22 of the 24 students in his biochemistry course got Ds, Fs or dropped the class during his first semester of teaching in 2002. School officials told him his pass-fail rate was "unacceptable." But here's what else seems unacceptable: according to U.S. Education Department data, only 12% of Norfolk State students graduate in four years, and only 30% graduate in six years. As for the school, spokeswoman Sharon Hoggard tells InsideHigherEd, “Something is wrong when you cannot impart your knowledge onto students. We are a university of opportunity, so we take students who are underprepared, but we have a history of whipping them into shape. That's our niche.”

Should a teacher lose a job because he refuses to pass underperforming students? Or is his abominable pass-fail rate a result of his lousy teaching? Hard to say. But I suspect the problem is bigger than this one guy and his biochem class.