The reason I’m asking this is because I had a Elementary Spanish 1 class with a teacher who stated in her syllabus that you must score a 70% or better on the final exam to pass the class even though the final was only 10% of our grade. Why is a teacher allowed to fail a student in this case if it’s legal?
Yes.
This is very common in foreign language classes. The instructor told you upfront what the expectations are. Failure to complete a major part of the course requirements can equal a failure for the course. Knowing the expectations from the beginning, you can always opt to take another class.
Additionally, for foreign language courses, it it also common for a school to require a certain grade in a class to be able to take the next class in the sequence. And really, if you can’t get a 70%+, you really haven’t learned the material, IMO.
I just don’t get it though because what difference does it make how a student does on the final as long as they got at least a 70% overall grade. But at the same time, when a teacher designs the final exam like this, you would think they would make the final easy enough or else too many people will flunk the class.