San Diego’s school district is weakening its grading system because of “racial disparities.”
Yearly averaging of grades will end. Why? The practice, it is said, has penalized students who do poorly early in the year, presumably unfairly.
Teachers will also be prohibited from taking into account whether homework is submitted on time and how students behave in class. These aspects of performance will instead be incorporated into a “citizen grade.”
Richard Barrera, VP of the school district, says “to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”
Student behavior has sometimes been called “deportment.” Grading it separately is nothing new. But San Diego’s rationale for doing so is bad. And eliminating a yearly average (or semester average) discourages students from working diligently all year long.
What if, under the hobbled system, grades still exhibit “racial disparities”? The logical conclusion is an end to grades and to merit-based distinctions.
Many reasons for academic disparities among different groups are possible. But let’s say that kids of certain color tend to have lousier home lives than kids of other color, and therefore do worse in school.
If so, disparities in performance cannot be attributed to attempts to objectively assess schoolwork.
And the problems won’t disappear if grades disappear.
Any silver lining?
Well, if you’re a substandard teacher, meaningless grades for students will also make it harder to know when you, the teacher, are doing substandard work.
Though the metal most apt, here, is much baser than “silver.”
Lead seems about right.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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5 replies on “Merit No More”
Madness, another attack on merit as a metric. This cannot end well, especially for the individuals who are sought to be “benefited”.
Will elementary and secondary educational assessments simply become participation awards?
The best lessons to be taught to the youth of America are individual responsibility and that they determine their own future by their present and daily actions. This policy is the opposite, and destructive.
I have a very minor nit to pick with your wording in the last paragraph of the this day in history sidebar. You say that most of he US Canada border is on the 49th parallel. That doesn’t add up. The border is more than 5500 miles long while the part of it that is on the 49th parallel is less than 1300 miles long. In what sort of mathematics is 1300 more than half of 5500? Or do I just have the wrong definition of “most”?
That sounds like a setup for a lifetime of failure!
Now, we’re truly WOKE! No longer will high school graduates be forced to be capable of reading their own diplomas.
Who says they can now?