OUT: school work and home work. IN: Equitable Grading

May 2024 · 10 minute read

Schools Are Ditching Homework, Deadlines in Favor of ‘Equitable Grading’. April 26, 2023 Wall Street Journal

"Equitable grading can take different forms, but the systems aim to measure whether a student knows the classroom material by the end of a term without penalties for behavior, which, under the theory, can introduce bias. Homework is typically played down and students are given multiple opportunities to complete tests and assignments.

Proponents of the approach, including paid consultants, say it benefits students with after-school responsibilities, such as a job or caring for siblings, as well as those with learning disabilities. Traditional grading methods, they say, favor those with a stable home life and more hands-on parents."

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by Anonymousreply 36April 28, 2023 5:46 PM

[quote]more hands-on parents

Pics please.

by Anonymousreply 1April 27, 2023 12:14 PM

In theory, this sounds good. But as often happens, this will be taken to some sort of extreme, and the original intent will be lost.

Then, there will be 750 threads of this on The DL. Some proclaiming "how they saw this coming" etc. etc.

by Anonymousreply 2April 27, 2023 12:24 PM

The dumbing down of America.

by Anonymousreply 3April 27, 2023 12:36 PM

Once again, education is made to suffer due to a range of societal issues that government won’t address. Yet we have more billionaires than ever. Maybe they’ll wake up when this generation of kids can’t even hold a job at whatever drone industry Amazon looks like in 20 years.

by Anonymousreply 4April 27, 2023 12:47 PM

This went on in bad schools for years. Everyone was given multiple chances to pass.. Students could be truant and do zero work. Just hand in some two page report the last day. Then Obama came up with Race to the Top to stop this nonsense, I guess, everything old is new again.

by Anonymousreply 5April 27, 2023 1:26 PM

Liberals are doing more to destroy public education than the Republicans.

by Anonymousreply 7April 27, 2023 1:44 PM

R7 believes everything he reads in The Wall Street Journal, a right-wing rag. That's what happens when you're not educated.

by Anonymousreply 8April 27, 2023 1:50 PM

R4 probably couldn't hold a job at McDonald's.

Right-wingers aren't known for being able to recognize the bias of certain publications.

Red states have worse schools than the blue states.

by Anonymousreply 9April 27, 2023 1:52 PM

It's also a way to cater to spoiled and/or stupid rich kids. I taught in a private school and interviewed at a second one with policies like this. If you have no deadlines, then you're continually grading and chasing kids for work. Then if they bomb a test because they weren't prepared, it's your responsibility to give them endless opportunities to retake tests.

On the other hand, I don't give students much homework. If I give students an assignment, I always give them time in class to do it. That way, I know it gets done and they can ask me questions about it. And they have no excuses if they don't do it.

by Anonymousreply 10April 27, 2023 1:56 PM

But life doesn't give you multiple chances. And yes, life favors those without learning discord and with stable home and emotional lives.

School needs to be an accurate reflection of life in order to be effective. Otherwise, you coddle kids in a cocoon for 20 years then suddenly fling them out the hatch into the void of outer space.

by Anonymousreply 11April 27, 2023 1:56 PM

Not letting behavior and preparation affect grading is going to make teaching even more of a nightmare than it is already.

by Anonymousreply 12April 27, 2023 2:00 PM

Core GOP. If you make them dumber they vote for us. Look at how the GOP and TRUMP became the party of poor white trash. This is why they fight so hard about education and have infiltrated school boards and local government. While we were sleeping they took over our schools.

by Anonymousreply 13April 27, 2023 2:47 PM

Stupidest idea I've ever heard.

Every once in a while I see these ridiculous "woke" (for lack of a better term) ideas, but suspect they were engineered by rethugs and rightwing operatives because they ultimately favor them.

There is a reason why there is a correlation between more liberal views and education.

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by Anonymousreply 15April 27, 2023 2:55 PM

R13 is a dumbass. "Equitable grading" is a liberal policy, not a conservative one.

by Anonymousreply 16April 27, 2023 3:20 PM

r16 You might want to check that. It sounds "woke" but it's not. Who do you think equitable grading benefits?

by Anonymousreply 17April 27, 2023 3:28 PM

It's the morons on the edges of the horseshoe of politics. One edge thinks this is a great idea and the other edge benefits from it.

Everyone else is looking at it in horror.

by Anonymousreply 18April 27, 2023 3:28 PM

[quote]But life doesn't give you multiple chances.

Sure it does. Look at how many times Tucker Carlson failed before he succeeded. Trump, too.

It can't be bad to give kids the idea that there's only one chance at success and if they miss it, they're doomed forever.

by Anonymousreply 19April 27, 2023 3:35 PM

This is neither a liberal nor a conservative issue. We've been doing it in our schools for more than twenty years! The original idea/research comes from down under. It was originally called "grading for learning" and was based on the idea that our traditional grading was used to label and weed out students, rather than to help them succeed. Like any (and every) educational idea it can be taken to extremes. That's how we end up with "no deadlines" and shit like that.

Yes, this is a lot more work for teachers. For example, while teaching math in our rushed and racing elementary curriculum it's typical for a lot of kids to fail end-of-chapter tests. The pacing guide requires us to keep on moving, no matter how many kids are left behind. So I had to create extra homework and practice opportunities for students, and give them opportunities to take another test on that material. A number of them DID eventually "get it" and show mastery -they were the ones who tried. There was another bloc of students who simply took new tests over and over, continuing to fail them because they weren't doing any work or practice to try to learn the material. In the end, this helped some kids -the ones who struggle but keep trying. I'm all for helping them.

In the larger context, you have to remember that most states claim now to be "standards based," which is teacher talk for measuring the student against the curriculum standards, rather than against assignments or tests. If you know the material, you are graded up. Modern elementary report cards typically give number grades on the order of 4= exceeding the standard, 3= meeting the standard, 2= approaching the standard, 1= not progressing toward meeting the standard. As a teacher of 30+ years I'm fine with this. Where I draw the line is inserting policies that remove or distance responsibility from the students. Deadlines are a real thing in the world, but parents today fight tooth-and-nail against them. My school board now requires that (at all grades) teachers accept late work without penalty until the end of each term. It's a bureaucratic nightmare that has no positive impact on learning.

Sorry that this post is over-long, but this issue is close to my professional heart. We can do a better job in using grading to promote student learning, but we also have to promote student responsibility or it's all worthless.

by Anonymousreply 20April 27, 2023 3:36 PM

Wondering when the cranky eldergays will descend on this thread and bitch about Kids Today and how In My Day We Walked To School In A Blizzard, Uphill, Both Ways! and blah blah blah blah

by Anonymousreply 21April 27, 2023 4:15 PM

I'm a teach and my issue is ALL the accommodation I must make for diversity of all kinds. So as mentioned above, retaking tests means the teacher has to have MULTIPLE valid tests. In certain domains, a test isn't a photocopies exercise. My issue is teachers' teaching load hasn't been reduced to make room for all this extra work we do, chasing down "success" in those determined not to be a success.

Now I don't mind giving the extra time to those with learning handicaps but perfectly capable students abuse the system that isn't designed for their abilities, and DAMAGES their growth. If they are able, they need to meet the benchmarks and keep going. Not retake retake retake dumbed down instruments because they are too immature to realise that hard work in school will pay off innumerable ways.

by Anonymousreply 22April 27, 2023 4:30 PM

Well, there was no blizzard when I walked to school, but I did, in fact, walk rather than have my parents drop me off and pick me up from kindergarten.

Also, I did do homework and could not be bothered by whether slow students could keep up or not. I just assumed they wouldn't be going to college and moved on. I didn't worry that they had the reading level of a 4th grader when we graduated from high school. I simply didn't care.

by Anonymousreply 24April 27, 2023 4:32 PM

[quote]I'm a TEACHER! —Those who can, do. Those who can't....

And those who can't teach, post stupid shit on an anonymous gay gossip forum.

by Anonymousreply 25April 27, 2023 5:28 PM

Nothing new here. Didn't work before. Why would anyone ever become a teacher these days?

by Anonymousreply 26April 27, 2023 5:34 PM

I think there's something to be said for - not everyone learns the same way, tests the same way, etc. and I'm not against teachers trying to engage and/or measure progress in different ways.

But yeah, this sounds like a minefield.

by Anonymousreply 27April 27, 2023 5:35 PM

Reading this garbage has made my right arm hurt from vigorous patting myself on the back for not having children.

And, as a non-parent, I have the god-given right to tell every parent exactly what they are doing wrong in raising their brats.

by Anonymousreply 28April 27, 2023 5:37 PM

Illegals and inner city blacks r17.

by Anonymousreply 29April 27, 2023 5:49 PM

What's an "illegal", R29?

by Anonymousreply 30April 27, 2023 5:53 PM

I work for a test scoring company. The standards for students today are so incredibly low. They are abysmal.

by Anonymousreply 31April 27, 2023 5:53 PM

Yep- and students are less likely to learn deadlines, efficiency, time utilization and accountability.

by Anonymousreply 32April 27, 2023 5:56 PM

This is designed to reduce the difference in outcomes for different racial groups. If they just told teachers to give all black kids high grades, it would be easier. Of course, you’d have high school graduates who can’t read. And we’d be back where we started from. Good luck teachers.

by Anonymousreply 33April 27, 2023 6:01 PM

I do give kids from disadvantaged backgrounds more chances to turn in work and makeup assignments. I teach in an extremely wealthy public school, and I feel for the kids who don't come from money. They are the ones least likely to ask for help and accommodations. But if I tried to codify this policy, it would result in abuse by asshats.

by Anonymousreply 35April 27, 2023 7:58 PM

[quote]Yep- and students are less likely to learn deadlines, efficiency, time utilization and accountability.

Their future as drones for the capitalist Ubermenschen is in jeopardy!

by Anonymousreply 36April 28, 2023 5:46 PM

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