Public education is already a joke, but this is utterly ridiculous. And these stupid young adults are death to these blue Demonrat regions that are already unlivable with street takeovers, mob disobedience, theft and vandalism are out of control. Is it all a setup for a federal takeover of law enforcement? Or just incentive to disperse residents from these blue liberal areas around the rest of the country to try and impact politics?
https://thevoicesf.org/grading-for-equity-coming-to-san-francisco-high-schools-this-fall/
District materials highlight a decrease in A grades for ‘more privileged’ students.
By John Trasviña
Without seeking approval of the San Francisco Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Maria Su plans to unveil a new Grading for Equity plan on Tuesday that will go into effect this fall at 14 high schools and cover over 10,000 students. The school district is already negotiating with an outside consultant to train teachers in August in a system that awards a passing C grade to as low as a score of 41 on a 100-point exam.
Were it not for an intrepid school board member, the drastic change in grading with implications for college admissions and career readiness would have gone unnoticed and unexplained. It is buried in a three-word phrase on the last page of a PowerPoint presentation embedded in the school board meeting’s 25-page agenda. The plan comes during the last week of the spring semester while parents are assessing the impact of over $100 million in budget reductions and deciding whether to remain in the public schools this fall. While the school district acknowledges that parent aversion to this grading approach is typically high and understands the need for “vigilant communication,” outreach to parents has been minimal and may be nonexistent. The school district’s Office of Equity homepage does not mention it and a page containing the SFUSD definition of equity has not been updated in almost three years.
Grading for Equity eliminates homework or weekly tests from being counted in a student’s final semester grade. All that matters is how the student scores on a final examination, which can be taken multiple times. Students can be late turning in an assignment or showing up to class or not showing up at all without it affecting their academic grade. Currently, a student needs a 90 for an A and at least 61 for a D. Under the San Leandro Unified School District’s grading for equity system touted by the San Francisco Unified School District and its consultant, a student with a score as low as 80 can attain an A and as low as 21 can pass with a D.
Joe Feldman, the consultant the school district plans to contract with to implement Grading for Equity, wrote in 2019 that in Placer County, another jurisdiction with the grading system, “students who did not qualify for free or reduced-price lunch had a sharper decrease in A’s, reflecting how traditional grading practices disproportionately benefit students with resources because of the inequitable inclusion of extra credit and other resource-dependent grading criteria.”
Grading for Equity may reduce A and D/F grades and, according to Feldman, enable a school district to cut costs for remedial classes but what about student academic outcomes? The most recent data from both middle schools in San Leandro where grading reform started in 2016 document significant continued disparities among student populations when it comes to performance on statewide assessment tests. In both English and mathematics, the gaps ranged from twice to triple to even four times as many students meeting or exceeding the statewide standard in some subgroups compared to others. The children needing the most help and improvement are not getting it.
The school district has long expressed its commitment to teaching “the whole child.” Grading for Equity de-emphasizes the importance of timely performance, completion of assignments, and consistent attendance. These are all elements essential for students to be college and career ready when they graduate.
Grading for Equity de-emphasizes the importance of timely performance, completion of assignments, and consistent attendance.
Grading for Equity also contradicts one of the Superintendent’s responsibilities (what the school district calls “guardrails”) “not [to] allow curriculum and instruction that is not rooted in excellence. . . .” While teachers will have a choice to utilize Grading for Equity this fall, students and parents may not. Even if students transfer to a classroom with a traditional grading system, they cannot escape the impact the experiment will have on class ranking, scholarship access, daily study habits or assignments. For teachers, one of the school district’s interim goals is to set a target for students to get a C grade or higher in the new system. That should be easier under Grading for Equity because the system lowers the threshold for a C grade. But will the student learn more or be more ready for college and career?
A larger question is whether advancing Grading for Equity represents a shift back toward policies such as ending eighth-grade algebra and Lowell High School academic admissions. School board members responsible for those policies were recalled. Superintendent Su is owning this policy as her staff has informed the school board it has no formal authority to accept or reject it. Parents and students have suffered mightily through all the school district changes over the past few years while voters as a whole have invested heavily in bond and ballot measures to help the schools. Such a drastic and dramatic change in the high school grading system merits greater attention and scrutiny than given by the school district up to now.