So how can school districts “do educational equity right” when it comes to grading? How do we address concerns about bias while maintaining high standards? Let's go back to the three big rules of this series.
- When aiming for equity, you need to level up, not down.
- We should focus on closing the gap between rich and disadvantaged students, not between high-achieving students and their lower-achieving peers.
- We need to focus equity initiatives primarily on class, not race.
Grading system that raises your level instead of lowering it
This is the crux of the problem. As discussed in the homework post, student effort is key to student learning. Especially as children get older, they are less able to master difficult content due to osmosis. They have to practice math problems, write and rewrite research papers, study for history and science tests, and more. And even if they have read Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Alfie Kohn, most young people will not choose to put extra time and effort into their studies because of their inherent love of learning.
Therefore, rigorous grading practices are essential to motivate students to work harder. In fact, several studies, including a Seth Gershenson paper published by Fordham, have shown that better-performing teachers have a clear positive impact on students' learning even after they leave the classroom. This is true for students of all racial subgroups and students attending high-poverty schools. If you make it easier for students to get A's and B's, that's a problem.
But there's no doubt that we're making it easier. Evidence of grade inflation continues to mount. Like many negative trends in American schools, this phenomenon began before the pandemic, but the COVID era has made things much worse. That's partly because schools have relaxed standards while kids are learning on Zoom, but it's also the case that the push for “equity” in grading gained momentum after the 2020 race review.
We now find ourselves in a situation where elite universities cannot rely on student performance to send a clear signal. Because almost everyone who applies gets an A right away. On the other side of the academic spectrum, our high school graduation rates are higher than ever. In part, this is because graduation standards related to receiving passing grades in required courses are lower than ever (yes?).
What this means is that we need to take a critical look at grading practices that have the effect of lowering standards. This is true even if the advocate did not intend to do so. That bucket contains the “50% rule.” This means that teachers must give children at least 50% on every test or assignment, even those that the children did not turn in. If you have (or ever had) a teenager, some kids will adapt to this system and do less work. Likewise, grading is prohibited even when homework is completed. Children, like many of us, need someone to hold them accountable for doing what is in their long-term self-interest. This means reading a book, doing your homework, and getting feedback on whether you did a good job. The same goes for banning penalties for late work or cheating.
As we discuss below, there remain many other grading reforms worth embracing that are still focused on maintaining high standards while reducing bias.
Grade reform and high versus low achievers.
One of the main arguments against practices like the 50% rule is that giving a child a zero on a big assignment will lead to poor grades and giving up. That's definitely a possibility. Zero is actually a far cry from the traditional minimum score of 60% for a passing grade, and if a student is staring at a goose egg, it may be mathematically impossible to build a sufficient foundation to pass the subject.
But this overarching rule affects not only the lowest-performing students—those at risk of not passing the course. It affects everyone, including those who try and work hard. And high achievers will also adapt their behavior to new policies. I know that if I build up high enough A's at the beginning of the quarter, I can take a quiz later or skip some assignments and still get what I need on my report card. So they worked less. That's not good! (And keep in mind that many of these high achievers are students from disadvantaged backgrounds, so it's not good for equity either.)
A better approach, then, would be to return power over grading practices to teachers, allowing them to extend grace to students on a case-by-case basis. If students mess up a big assignment or test early in the quarter, teachers can make it clear that those zeros will be adjusted upward if they get their act together and perform better on future assessments. This is a much better solution than school-wide or district-wide rules that apply to everyone.
What about bias?
Now let’s look at some rating reforms worth supporting. It is a reform that represents higher expectations. and We strive to reduce bias. The bias part is important. It's not hard to see how unintentional bias can creep into the grading process, whether because of students' socioeconomic background, race, or the intersection of the two. On the one hand, the teacher may be more approachable, knowing the challenges the child is facing at home, namely the soft bias toward low expectations. Or a teacher may expect a student's work to be of low quality based on their zip code, appearance, or previous ability to perform an assignment.
Therefore, various forms of blind grading are recommended. This may include electronic grading systems where teachers do not see students' names until they have completed the assessment, or mechanisms where teachers grade papers and exams of students from other teachers. Nonetheless, those who do the grading have the benefit of people enforcing clear rubrics and, ideally, the rigorous standards required for work to be considered A-level work. Of course, this kind of approach is at the heart of AP and International Baccalaureate (IBA) programs and how they evaluate student exams.
But to be clear, we should not expect blind grading or similar techniques to eliminate disparities in student performance based on race or ethnicity. As long as there is an achievement gap (sadly, as long as it is significant), there will also be a GPA gap.
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The “class reformers” have performed an important service by making this issue an important topic. It's ridiculous that over the past few decades, we've largely expected teachers to judge grades themselves and put little effort into ensuring that grading expectations remain consistent across schools, districts, and even classrooms!
But some rating reforms are better than others. Education leaders: Be discerning. Empower your teachers. Be sure to work to eliminate bias. But whatever you do, make sure to keep your expectations high.