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The inordinately complicated and refined nature of current “assessment and evaluation”—outcomes, expectations, rubrics, learning skills, achievement chart categories, assessment guidelines, and so on—partly explains why administrators are reluctant to tolerate failure: too much methodology, expertise and commitment has been invested for anything but success

When this becomes a systemic culture, the traditional and arguably natural principle of education is subverted: the school now finds itself adapting increasingly to its students. A school does this when, for example, it allows late assignments to go unpenalized, plagiarized essays to be rewritten, absolute deadlines to be repeatedly extended, unsubmitted work to be accepted after the semester is over, and obvious failures to be overturned. Students are quick to sense when those ultimately accountable for enforcing the standards of the school, its administrators, are soft; that so few students take advantage of this is a wonder.