“Equity Grading”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not so much about not allowing late work but more about eliminating a grade for homework, classwork and class participation. The idea is that a kid who fails to routinely do that type of work has a low grade for those areas, and even if he aced a test, his grade is still brought way down. By eliminating all of the other non major work grades, and focusing just on the major work grades, the students are graded solely on what they know, not what they are still mastering. That means if a kid gets a B on a quiz but an A on the test, the quiz is thrown out because the test showed mastery.

Obviously, this hurts the students who put the effort in from the beginning because he gets no credit for that and no grade buffer added in to help raise a lower test grade. Other HSs in FCPS already do this. It should be universal throughout FCPS one way or another and I would prefer it gone.

My niece attends a school that uses this. As a former teacher, I hate it. It punishes the kids who are hard workers but maybe not all As all the time.

It rewards content mastery which is the whole point of education, whether you master the material.

The real world cares about results/mastery not hard work, as a manager I don't care how much effort my folks put in I only care about the end product which is only possible based on mastery of how to do it.

Presumably you also care that the end product is ready for review/delivery by next Friday instead of five months from now.

I agree with the PP. Where do you draw the line? The student misses the final test? I don't care how good your work is as a manger, if it's past the deadline, I can't use it. And in the "real world" there are often countdown meetings, and check-ins etc etc. It's probably (at least in my line of work) very unusual to be given a project with an XYZ deadline and not have any check ins/meetings in between.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD is dreading next year bc of this (an LBSS student like Op's kid).

She says it's unfair to her and her peers who actually work hard, study, do homework (AND turn it on time), and give their 100%, but the grades won't reflect that bc it'll be watered down and shifted. All bc the teachers/fcps dont want the slackers and lazy bums and others don't look bad.

Why does she care about the grades of the slackers and the lazy bums? It’s not like they’re going to compete with her for spots at HYP? She should focus on herself. If there are unfair boosts of those at her own level, then she can complain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD is dreading next year bc of this (an LBSS student like Op's kid).

She says it's unfair to her and her peers who actually work hard, study, do homework (AND turn it on time), and give their 100%, but the grades won't reflect that bc it'll be watered down and shifted. All bc the teachers/fcps dont want the slackers and lazy bums and others don't look bad.

Why does she care about the grades of the slackers and the lazy bums? It’s not like they’re going to compete with her for spots at HYP? She should focus on herself. If there are unfair boosts of those at her own level, then she can complain.

if you are compared against your school as a whole and you can't help but get a B, it means there is that much more pressure to get As if you want to stand out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD is dreading next year bc of this (an LBSS student like Op's kid).

She says it's unfair to her and her peers who actually work hard, study, do homework (AND turn it on time), and give their 100%, but the grades won't reflect that bc it'll be watered down and shifted. All bc the teachers/fcps dont want the slackers and lazy bums and others don't look bad.

Why does she care about the grades of the slackers and the lazy bums? It’s not like they’re going to compete with her for spots at HYP? She should focus on herself. If there are unfair boosts of those at her own level, then she can complain.

Right? She's the problem! She needs to learn to keep her mouth shut, complaining about issues only gets her in trouble and makes anonymous people upset with her.

[Anonymous]

Guessing this is standards based grading. My gradebook would have a column for each skill the kids must demonstrate mastery of, on a scale of 1-4. If you don't get a 3 or a 4 you have to keep re-attempting that skill until you can show you know it.

For algebra 1:
--Solve equation using the distributive property
--solve equation with variables on both sides
--solve equation involving rational expressions
--solve an equation with infinite or no solutions

Rather than the current: "Unit 2 test - equations"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's not so much about not allowing late work but more about eliminating a grade for homework, classwork and class participation. The idea is that a kid who fails to routinely do that type of work has a low grade for those areas, and even if he aced a test, his grade is still brought way down. By eliminating all of the other non major work grades, and focusing just on the major work grades, the students are graded solely on what they know, not what they are still mastering. That means if a kid gets a B on a quiz but an A on the test, the quiz is thrown out because the test showed mastery.

Obviously, this hurts the students who put the effort in from the beginning because he gets no credit for that and no grade buffer added in to help raise a lower test grade. Other HSs in FCPS already do this. It should be universal throughout FCPS one way or another and I would prefer it gone.

My niece attends a school that uses this. As a former teacher, I hate it. It punishes the kids who are hard workers but maybe not all As all the time.

It is not obvious to me. If you are able, please explain how it hurts those students.

[Anonymous]

School is not a competition. The sooner people realize this, the better. The goal of public school is to have kids graduate with a basic level of competency in all areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School is not a competition. The sooner people realize this, the better. The goal of public school is to have kids graduate with a basic level of competency in all areas.

Can you tell colleges? Until they agree, it is a competition

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School is not a competition. The sooner people realize this, the better. The goal of public school is to have kids graduate with a basic level of competency in all areas.

Organizational skills are more important than content in school and in real life. Now we've decided to stop teaching and to stop requiring it for our kids. Why? Because some kids aren't good at it so we should not teach or require it from any kids? Why does that make sense?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not so much about not allowing late work but more about eliminating a grade for homework, classwork and class participation. The idea is that a kid who fails to routinely do that type of work has a low grade for those areas, and even if he aced a test, his grade is still brought way down. By eliminating all of the other non major work grades, and focusing just on the major work grades, the students are graded solely on what they know, not what they are still mastering. That means if a kid gets a B on a quiz but an A on the test, the quiz is thrown out because the test showed mastery.

Obviously, this hurts the students who put the effort in from the beginning because he gets no credit for that and no grade buffer added in to help raise a lower test grade. Other HSs in FCPS already do this. It should be universal throughout FCPS one way or another and I would prefer it gone.

My niece attends a school that uses this. As a former teacher, I hate it. It punishes the kids who are hard workers but maybe not all As all the time.

It is not obvious to me. If you are able, please explain how it hurts those students.

Read the sentence again. It's pretty clear. The students who put effort in get no credit and no buffer for a bad test grade.

[Anonymous]

Dear FCPS families,

We thought our school system was bad. Yours is a joke.

Signed,

LCPS families

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:School is not a competition. The sooner people realize this, the better. The goal of public school is to have kids graduate with a basic level of competency in all areas.

Do you have kids?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not so much about not allowing late work but more about eliminating a grade for homework, classwork and class participation. The idea is that a kid who fails to routinely do that type of work has a low grade for those areas, and even if he aced a test, his grade is still brought way down. By eliminating all of the other non major work grades, and focusing just on the major work grades, the students are graded solely on what they know, not what they are still mastering. That means if a kid gets a B on a quiz but an A on the test, the quiz is thrown out because the test showed mastery.

Obviously, this hurts the students who put the effort in from the beginning because he gets no credit for that and no grade buffer added in to help raise a lower test grade. Other HSs in FCPS already do this. It should be universal throughout FCPS one way or another and I would prefer it gone.

My niece attends a school that uses this. As a former teacher, I hate it. It punishes the kids who are hard workers but maybe not all As all the time.

It rewards content mastery which is the whole point of education, whether you master the material.

The real world cares about results/mastery not hard work, as a manager I don't care how much effort my folks put in I only care about the end product which is only possible based on mastery of how to do it.

Presumably you also care that the end product is ready for review/delivery by next Friday instead of five months from now.

I agree with the PP. Where do you draw the line? The student misses the final test? I don't care how good your work is as a manger, if it's past the deadline, I can't use it. And in the "real world" there are often countdown meetings, and check-ins etc etc. It's probably (at least in my line of work) very unusual to be given a project with an XYZ deadline and not have any check ins/meetings in between. [/quote

Well, lucky 14 through 18-year-olds are not in the real world yet. They are still in the learning process which means the learning of the material should take precedence, not training them yet]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not so much about not allowing late work but more about eliminating a grade for homework, classwork and class participation. The idea is that a kid who fails to routinely do that type of work has a low grade for those areas, and even if he aced a test, his grade is still brought way down. By eliminating all of the other non major work grades, and focusing just on the major work grades, the students are graded solely on what they know, not what they are still mastering. That means if a kid gets a B on a quiz but an A on the test, the quiz is thrown out because the test showed mastery.

Obviously, this hurts the students who put the effort in from the beginning because he gets no credit for that and no grade buffer added in to help raise a lower test grade. Other HSs in FCPS already do this. It should be universal throughout FCPS one way or another and I would prefer it gone.

My niece attends a school that uses this. As a former teacher, I hate it. It punishes the kids who are hard workers but maybe not all As all the time.

It rewards content mastery which is the whole point of education, whether you master the material.

The real world cares about results/mastery not hard work, as a manager I don't care how much effort my folks put in I only care about the end product which is only possible based on mastery of how to do it.

Presumably you also care that the end product is ready for review/delivery by next Friday instead of five months from now.

I agree with the PP. Where do you draw the line? The student misses the final test? I don't care how good your work is as a manger, if it's past the deadline, I can't use it. And in the "real world" there are often countdown meetings, and check-ins etc etc. It's probably (at least in my line of work) very unusual to be given a project with an XYZ deadline and not have any check ins/meetings in between.

Well, lucky 14 through 18-year-olds are not in the real world yet. They are still in the learning process which means the learning of the material should take precedence, not training them yet

So the life skills that we learned in school, time management and organization and prioritization, our kids don't deserve to learn that until they're adults.

What's wrong with our kids? Why don't they deserve that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Read it

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/19/12/harvard-edcast-grading-equity

Here's the goal, folks:

"What we've found consistently across schools, whether they be middle schools, or high schools, or schools that serve lots of low income kids, and kids of color, or suburban predominantly white students and high income, is that the percent of A's that teachers give decreases because there's not so much inflation going on around doing all the homework and everything. Interestingly, the decrease in A's occurs most dramatically for white children and higher income children. The A rate of kids of color and low income actually increases a little bit."

FCPS doesn't want White and Asian kids succeeding. We've seen it with TJ, and we'll see it with "equity grading" under Dr. Reid.

She'll tell us it's all about "reimagining the possibilities," but it's mostly about imagining a world where the playing field is leveled by whatever means achieve more "equal outcomes."