by Harold Hutchison
Several schools throughout the country are moving to axe homework and deadlines in an effort to increase equity, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Under the philosophy of “equitable grading,” students are given more chances to show they have mastered a subject, a practice that downplays the importance of homework and eschews deadlines in an attempt to give kids who struggle with hardships at home more opportunities to learn the material, according to the WSJ. Schools in California, Nevada and Connecticut are moving to implement “equitable grading,” though opponents of the system, many teachers and students say it disincentives students and leads to a lack of accountability.
“We’re giving children hope and the opportunity to learn right up until [the class is] officially over,” Michael Rinaldi, the principal at Westhill High School in Stamford, Connecticut, told the outlet.
Clark County School District in Nevada, the fifth-largest school system in the country, has implemented “equitable grading”; however, teachers and students say the practice has led to a lack of accountability and motivation, the WSJ reported. Students are pushing off assignments and missing due dates because “equitable grading” gives them other opportunities to complete it later, teachers told the outlet.
“They’re relying on children having intrinsic motivation, and that is the furthest thing from the truth for this age group,” Laura Jeanne Penrod, a Clark County School District English teacher, told the outlet.
Though “equitable grading” still uses a traditional letter grading scale, student’s grades begin at 49% or 50% in an effort to keep their overall grade point averages (GPA) from tanking too low, the WSJ reported. The grading system does not permit extra credit opportunities for behavior or attendance.
Because of “equitable grading,” students are less incentivized to show up to regular class, instead only attending when a test is being administered, Samuel Hwang, a student at Ed W. Clark High School in Las Vegas, told the WSJ.
“If you go to a job in real life, you can’t pick and choose what tasks you want to do and only do the […] big ones,” Alyson Henderson, a Clark County School District English teacher, told the outlet. “We’re really setting students up for a false sense of reality.”
“Equitable grading” encourages students to realize the importance of the work they are doing, rather than focusing on how the assignment will impact their grade, Erin Spata, a science teacher at a Connecticut high school that adopted the practice, told the WSJ.
“Classrooms are pressure cookers,” Joe Feldman, a former teacher who now helps schools implement “equitable grading” systems, told the WSJ. “They’re now able to relax, say, ‘I can have a bad day,’ and spend more time on things. It changes the way the classroom feels.”
Clark County School District and Rinaldi did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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Harold Hutchison is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
It is only natural for parents to want the best for THEIR children. People will care about others’ children—to some degree—but not to the same extent that they will care about what is in the best interest of THEIR OWN children. The Good Lord did not give you someone else’s children to care for—He gave you YOUR children to care for. (And I do thank the Good Lord for those very few people who are willing to care for the children of others, and while there are some who will do this there are not many. God bless those who will be foster and/or adoptive parents.) No one will ever care as much about your own children as you will.
(The other day I heard Biden make some comment in a speech—probably written for him by someone else in The Biden/Obama Administration like Susan Rice or maybe even at the direction of Obama himself—I don’ think that Biden is now capable of thinking for himself in such a complex way if he ever was—saying, in so many words, that your child is not really your child but the State’s child.)
So, when I see a story like this, I am not only skeptical but I reject its premise. This story reflects views which do not ‘ring true’ to me. I am all for equal opportunity. I am NOT for equity—which to me is just ‘code’ for equal outcome.
Equal opportunity allows each child to excel and to achieve his maximum God-given potential. (Children have to be challenged. We all know, and remember, how it was when we ourselves were children. That which is the easiest is always the most tempting and attractive way to a child, but this way is not usually what is best. Adults know such things while children usually do not.) Equity is just ‘dumbing down’ to the lowest common denominator (and even lower)—THIS is what those (i.e., the Bolsheviks/Maoists) who think in terms of/preach to the proletariat masses do to CONTROL ALL in the name of the STATE.
If equity is where the public schools are now ‘heading’, then I think that it is past time for our public officials to offer our citizens as many alternatives to the public education of their children as is imaginable (e.g., charter schools, private schools, home schooling, etc.).