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Race-Based Grading

Setting aside the absurd claims by this fake newspaper, I'm failing to see what's so objectionable about distinguishing between disciplinary/behavioral problems and academic performance.

Using grades to punish students for poor behavior strikes me as a strange way to deal with the problem. Grades should be a reflection on whether or not a student understands the material, not whether or not they showed up to class on time reliably. Especially in the context of children who are not the masters of their own affairs.
 
theprestige said:
It does cite some primary sources and other more reputable media reports (i.e., the AP). But yeah, not a great source itself.


The fascinating thing about this reaction is the tacit agreement that if these allegations were true, it would be a bad thing, and reflect badly on the policy makers who instituted the policy.

It would be bad if it were happening, but fortunately (for some) the reporter is a Bad Person, so we can probably just ignore the report and assume things are fine and this really stupid bad thing isn't happening at all.
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Disagree - merely saying that it is likely to be a load of made up crap does not pass any kind of judgement on the crap if it was true.
 
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Brainster said:
I came across it on Memeorandum today and assumed by the look of it that it was some local newspaper. That said, at least some of what they claim is backed up by links to original documents (although they do some analysis). For example, should students be penalized for not showing up in class or turning in homework?



Do traditional grading polices perpetuate inequities according to the local board? Yep, direct quote:


So not hard to see that participation and homework submission have got to go. That said, I will acknowledge that the original materials do not talk specifically about race-based grading; that seems to be an implication on the part of the website that may be true but is not specifically mentioned as the criterion.
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So, do I really need to call it out?
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
Setting aside the absurd claims by this fake newspaper, I'm failing to see what's so objectionable about distinguishing between disciplinary/behavioral problems and academic performance.

Using grades to punish students for poor behavior strikes me as a strange way to deal with the problem. Grades should be a reflection on whether or not a student understands the material, not whether or not they showed up to class on time reliably. Especially in the context of children who are not the masters of their own affairs.
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Meeeeeeh...I dunno. Passing a class is more than memorizing facts and figures. There is an element of functioning in a society, too. Would you want to hire a straight-A student who doesn't show up for work or do what they are told, even if they understand the job? Would a college want to accept a student who is not prepared for the most basic requirements of lab work?

I mean, a public education is more than just the three Rs, isn't it?
 
Thermal said:
Meeeeeeh...I dunno. Passing a class is more than memorizing facts and figures. There is an element of functioning in a society, too. Would you want to hire a straight-A student who doesn't show up for work or do what they are told, even if they understand the job? Would a college want to accept a student who is not prepared for the most basic requirements of lab work?

I mean, a public education is more than just the three Rs, isn't it?
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Flunking a kid for behavioral problems doesn't fix anything either.

K-12 isn't a job or college. The schools themselves have some role in ensuring students attend and do their work. A student routinely missing class or not doing their work probably merits more attention than simply dinging their grades. A persistent enough problem merits intervention. The problem itself may be beyond the control of the student in any number of ways. Children generally cannot exert agency over their own affairs the ways adults do.

I doubt a student who is regularly missing class is going to be crushing their academic work anyway, so it's not like some screw-up is going to be getting straight As and acing the SAT. Behavioral problems are almost certainly going to impact their grades anyway, so I see no reason to double dip.
 
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theprestige said:
Why bother to dismiss the reporter with ad homs, if you believe the thing they're reporting on is a good idea?
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Love getting local news from my favorite local news reporter "LGIS News Service"

There's no byline for this article. It's not even trying to be genuine.

I'm reading the sports section of this genuine local paper. I'm honestly wondering if they are written by some sports-score harvesting algorithm, or maybe contracted out to some 3rd world country and written by someone with a poor grasp of the english language.
 
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Brainster said:
That said, I will acknowledge that the original materials do not talk specifically about race-based grading; that seems to be an implication on the part of the website that may be true but is not specifically mentioned as the criterion.
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Or it could be an implication that's total fabrication with no basis in reality. It wasn't mentioned as the criterion because it's not the criterion.


On the other hand, it does seem to be the case that someone is talking about removing the effects of non-academic criteria from the student scores. I don't see how homework, though, is "non-academic". Yes, if I think back to high school, there was some busywork assigned, but homework was really kind of where you actually learned the subject.
 
Meadmaker said:
Or it could be an implication that's total fabrication with no basis in reality. It wasn't mentioned as the criterion because it's not the criterion.


On the other hand, it does seem to be the case that someone is talking about removing the effects of non-academic criteria from the student scores. I don't see how homework, though, is "non-academic". Yes, if I think back to high school, there was some busywork assigned, but homework was really kind of where you actually learned the subject.
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It's hard to say what this policy might entail because the source in the OP is so clearly not credible. It could range from making homework totally optional and allowing students to run roughshod over teachers to loosening the grade punishments for late work in some circumstances, but it's hard to say with the complete lack of credible info given.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
It's hard to say what this policy might entail because the source in the OP is so clearly not credible. It could range from making homework totally optional and allowing students to run roughshod over teachers to loosening the grade punishments for late work in some circumstances, but it's hard to say with the complete lack of credible info given.
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Agreed. I tried googling some things, and didn't come up with much. It is being repeated, but I got hits from Westcooke, Breitbart, and Accuracy in Media.
 
Lol look at this sports section and tell me this is a real newspaper:

https://westcooknews.com/stories/tag/53-sports

Dozens and dozens of stories spanning a handful of days just regurgitating tennis results with broken language bordering on word salad, using stock photos and the same quote:

Jarett Cascino of New York Tennis Magazine says tennis is one of the most competitive youth sports.
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Cookie cutter fake newspaper.

ETA: fired up the search feature: SHOWING 7,311 RESULTS FOR '"JARETT CASCINO OF NEW YORK TENNIS MAGAZINE SAYS TENNIS IS ONE OF THE MOST COMPETITIVE YOUTH SPORTS."'
 
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Brainster said:
I came across it on Memeorandum today and assumed by the look of it that it was some local newspaper. That said, at least some of what they claim is backed up by links to original documents (although they do some analysis). For example, should students be penalized for not showing up in class or turning in homework?



Do traditional grading polices perpetuate inequities according to the local board? Yep, direct quote:



So not hard to see that participation and homework submission have got to go. That said, I will acknowledge that the original materials do not talk specifically about race-based grading; that seems to be an implication on the part of the website that may be true but is not specifically mentioned as the criterion.
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I read the article and I clicked on the links in it, and the article is garbage.

No one, ever, called for anything that could remotely be called race based grading. No one, ever, said that scores of black students had to be raised, and white students lowered. The article is fake news.

Even the homework issue was grossly distorted. What the back up material was noting is something that I observed 50 years ago when I was in school. If you grade on a 0-100 scale, with 90-80-70-60 cutoffs for letter grades, then the presence of a 0 grade grossly distorts the grade. If a teacher refuses to accept a late assignment, and gives it a 0, then a student who turns in three perfect scores on three assignments, but for whatever reason cannot finish one assignment on time, that person receives a C on the overall homework grade. It's dumb. It was dumb 50 years ago. It's dumb now.

The back up material didn't advocate not penalizing students for not doing homework. It didn't advocate not penalizing students for late homework. It said get rid of the zero. It's a good idea.

Meanwhile, most of the discussion was actually about recovering from the disastrous impact of remote instruction during the pandemic.

The article was just plain BS.
 
Meadmaker said:
I read the article and I clicked on the links in it, and the article is garbage.

No one, ever, called for anything that could remotely be called race based grading. No one, ever, said that scores of black students had to be raised, and white students lowered. The article is fake news.

<slippage for brevity>

The article was just plain BS.
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This. But it appealed to, and supported, the OP's prejudices and so he accepted it, and attempted to spread the lies further.
I note he still hasn't accepted that he was fooled by deliberately manipulative lies; perhaps that would be too much self-awareness?
 
theprestige said:
Anyway, Brainster, the source you cited in the OP is weak, and doesn't support your OP very well. In general, I much prefer that people dig down to the primary sources, and see what they have to say, before posting claims about them.

A powerpoint deck is cited, but the provenance of the deck is not known. Have you at least read through the deck and seen if any of the slides actually support the claims being made? If so, why not report on that directly, and cut out the superfluous middleman-of-ill-repute?

A published paper(?) by one of the school's policymakers(?) is cited. Have you read the paper, and seen if it reflects the views and policies alleged in the second-hand report? If so, why not report on that directly?

Your probuttal is really no better than ST's rebuttal. The most important thing they have in common is they're both butt.
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To repeat, I did not know the source was anything other than a small-town newspaper, which is why I didn't look into the source further. I did link to some of the material presented which at least backs up the main claims--that they are trying to reduce or eliminate grading based on attendance or submission of assignments, and that this is being done in the name of "Diversity, Equity and Inclusion." That this is code for "based on race" is the assumption of the writer, yes, but is it an unreasonable assumption?

Equalization of grades by race is absolutely a goal of the education profession, and should be. But the devil is always in the details. Thanks to Kendi and others like him, educators can no longer throw their hands up about Black students failing at a higher rate than Whites and Asians, because the racial difference in outcomes is prima facie evidence of racism.

Now some of the proposals mentioned at the linked sites are quite reasonable; for example allowing students to retake tests to improve their score. To me, the important thing is whether the kid eventually gets the material, not whether they got it at 9:00 AM on Friday for the test. It should also reduce testing anxiety.

If there is a reduction in the point value of homework, and if there is a substantial racial difference in doing homework, then average scores should rise a bit for the non-homework group. But it's just kicking the can down the road to the test. If you have one set of kids doing their assignments and another set not, how likely is it that the two sets will have equal test scores?
 
Meadmaker said:
I read the article and I clicked on the links in it, and the article is garbage.

No one, ever, called for anything that could remotely be called race based grading. No one, ever, said that scores of black students had to be raised, and white students lowered.
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Well, I would hope that some people have said the highlighted. The other part is the one the education establishment can control, and there are some indications it is going on--the elimination of AP courses and magnet schools are just one indicator.

That said, I admit the headline is inflammatory and I should not have used it for the OP title, or at least added a question mark. My bad definitely there.
 
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