“Equity Grading”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I be a contrarian? I grew up in a very traditional school system where your final mark was based on formal assessments like essays or presentations, mid semester exams, and a more heavily weighted end of semester exam. There were no marks for homework, attendance or class participation. Clearly if you didn’t do these, that would be reflected in your final performance. Why should anyone just get marks for handing in their homework???

Well, it depends on what you want to assess, but I think a real argument can be made that credit for kids who regularly put in the time and energy to complete homework, especially if they are doing so to a high standard, should be counted as worthy alongside the snapshot view you get of someone's knowledge (or, often, memory) as exhibited in a one-time exam where there's not access to external resources. I was a fantastic test-taker/essay writer and coasted happily along on that skill all the way through undergrad, and that reflected a certain skillset. But I know plenty of people who don't do well at all on tests or presentations but are extremely reliable and will really go nose to the grindstone over a long period of time to get things done. And I think schools should be recognizing and creating space for students to thrive in multiple ways, because our society needs multiple kinds of skills to also thrive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfax County parents praise grading policies that benefit their children, but condemn policies that they deem to threaten their child's competitive standing.

"Equity grading" or "easy grading" benefited all during the covid virtual environment and there were few complaints. But now, if low performers benefit, you all are suddenly up in arms. Same old story. A tale of race and fury.

Uh, there were plenty of complaints about the grading during covid. Some grading was too easy, some was too hard. A lot of grading didn't make sense. And a lot of students quickly got the message that they weren't supposed to do any work. Parents were upset by that (understandably? inexplicably?).

The covid grading policies were definitely problematic. Teachers did not apply them consistently and kids it was unfair to some kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I be a contrarian? I grew up in a very traditional school system where your final mark was based on formal assessments like essays or presentations, mid semester exams, and a more heavily weighted end of semester exam. There were no marks for homework, attendance or class participation. Clearly if you didn’t do these, that would be reflected in your final performance. Why should anyone just get marks for handing in their homework???

Because this is k-12 and if you don’t grade homework the kids won’t do it and will all fail the exams. That’s just reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can I be a contrarian? I grew up in a very traditional school system where your final mark was based on formal assessments like essays or presentations, mid semester exams, and a more heavily weighted end of semester exam. There were no marks for homework, attendance or class participation. Clearly if you didn’t do these, that would be reflected in your final performance. Why should anyone just get marks for handing in their homework???

I agree except for one point: many systems moving to this type of grading also allow for test retakes and paper resubmissions. I used to teach in a county that did test retakes. I grew tired of hearing students say they “forgot” to study, so they would use my initial test as a practice and then retake it later for “real.” Since retakes required the student to stay for additional tutoring first, it also meant I had to stay past duty hours and teach lessons again. Yes, I felt abused by students simply gaming the system as I was forced to work more so they could avoid studying. Honestly, it’s one of the reasons I left that district. There was no incentive to try and do well the first time, so I would argue this grading system definitely encourages laziness. Sure, the student can eventually demonstrate mastery and some will argue that’s all that matters. I disagree, especially because it discourages the same traits we would want to see in the students as they grow into adults (self-discipline, for example).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I be a contrarian? I grew up in a very traditional school system where your final mark was based on formal assessments like essays or presentations, mid semester exams, and a more heavily weighted end of semester exam. There were no marks for homework, attendance or class participation. Clearly if you didn’t do these, that would be reflected in your final performance. Why should anyone just get marks for handing in their homework???

Because this is k-12 and if you don’t grade homework the kids won’t do it and will all fail the exams. That’s just reality.

My school system was also k-12 and believe me everyone didn't fail their exams. It seems odd to me that people are claiming this is somehow reflects a 'progressive' agenda that is intended to favour kids from disadvantaged backgrounds whereas my system was regarded as the opposite and reflected a more 'reap what you sow' approach (ie don't do the homework or turn up then don't expect to do well in the final exams).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Read my last sentence. A kid who has all across the board on everything, will not be impacted. The kid who does not, will be. For example:

John gets As on every assignment and ends the year with an A.

Mary gets a low A- on two major assessments, a low A on one major assessment and 100s on homework, classwork, class participation, small quizzes, etc. Mary ends up with an A-. (Replace A- with all other grades lower than an A).

Now, during college application times, Mary's A- or whatever lower grade she has - is compared to other schools who provide that booster to grades which results in both Mary and John getting As on their transcripts when the Marys of those schools earned the same grades as the Mary in this school. If it is universal, it hurts less. If it is not universal, this hurts more. The only ones who really have a benefit from this are the kids who do little to no underlying work. They can end up with a C rather than a D or a B rather than a C.

I did not ask the question but none of this makes sense. John and Mary are fine.

Summary: it hurts the a-, b+, and b kids the most.

Correct it generally hurts nice umc white kids the most aka people who get higher grades because they do all the work not because they necessarily know the material the best

Again the final product aka test is what matters.

And to the DCUM crowd this is how college works so it's just preparing folks, where in some classes a mid-term and a final are all you get.

The final product should count the most, but the other work should also count.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can I be a contrarian? I grew up in a very traditional school system where your final mark was based on formal assessments like essays or presentations, mid semester exams, and a more heavily weighted end of semester exam. There were no marks for homework, attendance or class participation. Clearly if you didn’t do these, that would be reflected in your final performance. Why should anyone just get marks for handing in their homework???

Well, it depends on what you want to assess, but I think a real argument can be made that credit for kids who regularly put in the time and energy to complete homework, especially if they are doing so to a high standard, should be counted as worthy alongside the snapshot view you get of someone's knowledge (or, often, memory) as exhibited in a one-time exam where there's not access to external resources. I was a fantastic test-taker/essay writer and coasted happily along on that skill all the way through undergrad, and that reflected a certain skillset. But I know plenty of people who don't do well at all on tests or presentations but are extremely reliable and will really go nose to the grindstone over a long period of time to get things done. And I think schools should be recognizing and creating space for students to thrive in multiple ways, because our society needs multiple kinds of skills to also thrive.

I think it's easy to debate the best approach to assessment. I just find it odd that people are saying the move away from awarding marks for homework and participation is anti-merit whereas the argument would be the opposite in some countries which retain very traditional exam-based approaches. As an aside, given all the talk about unreasonable workloads of teaches these days, I find it hard to imagine that they have the bandwidth to grade homework and participation with any rigour.

[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.

Tell your smart DD to worry about herself and her own accomplishments!

- Parent of two LBSS kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Lake Braddock is now touting that it’s working towards implementing “equity grading”?

Obviously that’s a buzzword that sounds anti-merit and already has dozens of parents furious. And the people at LBSS who tout this seem to be trying to sing to a choir other parents, like perhaps to the new superintendent.

But what does it really mean? Willing to listen if someone can explain what the positives are, but otherwise increasingly inclined to pull my kids out of FCPS.

Why is grading for equity important?
It's about giving every student second chances, and third chances, and more, to learn. It's about giving every student hope. This is equity-based grading—grading in a way that is fair and transparent to students, parents, teachers, everybody.[i]


LBSS has over 2,000 high schoolers. A few dozens snowflakes mean nothing. Stop complaining. Good riddance to you!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lake Braddock is now touting that it’s working towards implementing “equity grading”?

Obviously that’s a buzzword that sounds anti-merit and already has dozens of parents furious. And the people at LBSS who tout this seem to be trying to sing to a choir other parents, like perhaps to the new superintendent.

But what does it really mean? Willing to listen if someone can explain what the positives are, but otherwise increasingly inclined to pull my kids out of FCPS.

Why is grading for equity important?
It's about giving every student second chances, and third chances, and more, to learn. It's about giving every student hope. This is equity-based grading—grading in a way that is fair and transparent to students, parents, teachers, everybody.[i]


LBSS has over 2,000 high schoolers. A few dozens snowflakes mean nothing. Stop complaining. Good riddance to you!

New poster. This is mumbo jumbo. Telling kids what due dates are and grading all assignments with the same grading scale is fair and transparent. Grading in a way that caters to those that don’t turn assignments in, is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lake Braddock is now touting that it’s working towards implementing “equity grading”?

Obviously that’s a buzzword that sounds anti-merit and already has dozens of parents furious. And the people at LBSS who tout this seem to be trying to sing to a choir other parents, like perhaps to the new superintendent.

But what does it really mean? Willing to listen if someone can explain what the positives are, but otherwise increasingly inclined to pull my kids out of FCPS.

Why is grading for equity important?
It's about giving every student second chances, and third chances, and more, to learn. It's about giving every student hope. This is equity-based grading—grading in a way that is fair and transparent to students, parents, teachers, everybody.[i]


LBSS has over 2,000 high schoolers. A few dozens snowflakes mean nothing. Stop complaining. Good riddance to you!

New poster. This is mumbo jumbo. Telling kids what due dates are and grading all assignments with the same grading scale is fair and transparent. Grading in a way that caters to those that don’t turn assignments in, is not.

Are you talking about the Football team???? all those pot smokers!

[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.

Tell your smart DD to worry about herself and her own accomplishments!

- Parent of two LBSS kids.

Take your own advice, Mr./Ms. Snarkypants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lake Braddock is now touting that it’s working towards implementing “equity grading”?

Obviously that’s a buzzword that sounds anti-merit and already has dozens of parents furious. And the people at LBSS who tout this seem to be trying to sing to a choir other parents, like perhaps to the new superintendent.

But what does it really mean? Willing to listen if someone can explain what the positives are, but otherwise increasingly inclined to pull my kids out of FCPS.

Why is grading for equity important?
It's about giving every student second chances, and third chances, and more, to learn. It's about giving every student hope. This is equity-based grading—grading in a way that is fair and transparent to students, parents, teachers, everybody.[i]


LBSS has over 2,000 high schoolers. A few dozens snowflakes mean nothing. Stop complaining. Good riddance to you!

New poster. This is mumbo jumbo. Telling kids what due dates are and grading all assignments with the same grading scale is fair and transparent. Grading in a way that caters to those that don’t turn assignments in, is not.

X100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lake Braddock is now touting that it’s working towards implementing “equity grading”?

Obviously that’s a buzzword that sounds anti-merit and already has dozens of parents furious. And the people at LBSS who tout this seem to be trying to sing to a choir other parents, like perhaps to the new superintendent.

But what does it really mean? Willing to listen if someone can explain what the positives are, but otherwise increasingly inclined to pull my kids out of FCPS.

Why is grading for equity important?
It's about giving every student second chances, and third chances, and more, to learn. It's about giving every student hope. This is equity-based grading—grading in a way that is fair and transparent to students, parents, teachers, everybody.[i]


LBSS has over 2,000 high schoolers. A few dozens snowflakes mean nothing. Stop complaining. Good riddance to you!

New poster. This is mumbo jumbo. Telling kids what due dates are and grading all assignments with the same grading scale is fair and transparent. Grading in a way that caters to those that don’t turn assignments in, is not.

Are you talking about the Football team???? all those pot smokers!

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Another way for FCPS to keep up appearances while the disparities become wider and tougher to camouflage.