The Wall Street Journal reports on a growing trend in high schools to ditch homework and move to an “equitable grading” system, which is supposed to measure whether a student knows the classroom material by the end of a term without penalties for behavior like skipping class.
“We’re giving children hope and the opportunity to learn right up until [the class is] officially over,” said Michael Rinaldi, the principal at Westhill High School in Stamford, Conn.
But some students and teachers in Las Vegas claim that some kids are gaming the system and that equitable grading ignores accountability.
“If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the quote big ones,” said Alyson Henderson, a high-school English teacher there. Lessons drag on now, she said, because students can turn in work until right before grades are due.
“We’re really setting students up for a false sense of reality,” Ms. Henderson said.
Equitable grading still typically awards As through Fs, but the criteria are overhauled. Homework, in-class discussions and other practice work, called formative assessments, are weighted at between 10% and 30%. The bulk of a grade is earned through what are known as summative assessments, such as tests or essays.
Extra credit is banned—no more points for bringing in school supplies—as is grading for behavior, which includes habits such as attendance.
The system is set up to give laggards and the terminally lazy as many chances as possible to pass a course. The scale starts at 49 or 50 so that if a student misses a few assignments they won’t just give up and fail. They will still have a chance to pass as long as they complete other tests and essays.
“There’s an apathy that pervades the entire classroom,” said Samuel Hwang, a senior at Ed W. Clark High School in Las Vegas. Hwang has spoken out against the grading changes, saying they provide incentives for poor work habits.
Erin Spata, a science teacher at Westhill High in Connecticut who favors the change, said her students are moving away from constantly asking how many points an assignment will be worth and instead understand the importance of practice work, whether or not it is counted toward the final grade.
So at least the teacher’s students aren’t bothering her about insignificant stuff like a student’s progress in the class and other, you know, teacher stuff.
What I’ve come to realize with all this equity BS in schools is that the cream will still rise to the top. No matter how hard the DEI crowd tries to “level” scholastics, the really smart kids will continue to shine.
The problem with that is that kids who are in the middle of the pack or slightly lower will be left behind. They will still want to go to college, however, and in order to stay in business, colleges are also dumbing down coursework, cheapening a college degree even further.
This cancerous attitude is turning primary and secondary education into factories of uneducated and barely educated students. What will America look like when DEI has done its work and we’re all “equal” in our ignorance?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member