Cedarwolf, I extend my sympathies to you. You must see carnage on the page every day. Did anyone ever turn in a paper written in Chat? For the record, I never comment on the quality of posts here -- this is a fun place and pretty much anything goes. This one time, it was done for sarcasm, thus the criticism of incomplete sentences with an incomplete sentence. It was my ironic way of objecting to the content. Speaking of the magic "D", here in Los Angeles they decided to end social promotion about 4 years ago. The advocates for this set a certain bar. You had to be passing English and History and reading at grade level to pass. As the 'grace' year passed and the first year ensued, it soon became evident to all that the bar was too high. Under the criteria fully 43% were projected to fail the K-12 system. The bar had to be lowered. As a result, you could fail all your classes and be reading way below your grade average, but as long as you got at least a D- in English, you were passed to the next grade. We now have an exit exam for High School graduation, and you also must accumulate the necessary credits to walk on graduation day, so it is possible to fail high school here. I will also report that systematic phonics-first is finally beginning to win the battle, to a degree, in K-3. ::::: Opera :::::