Changing Grades

[George K]

OPRF to implement race-based grading system in 2022-23 school year

Oak Park and River Forest High School administrators will require teachers next school year to adjust their classroom grading scales to account for the skin color or ethnicity of its students.

School board members discussed the plan called “Transformative Education Professional Development & Grading” at a meeting on May 26, presented by Assistant Superintendent for Student Learning Laurie Fiorenza.

In an effort to equalize test scores among racial groups, OPRF will order its teachers to exclude from their grading assessments variables it says disproportionally hurt the grades of black students. They can no longer be docked for missing class, misbehaving in school or failing to turn in their assignments, according to the plan.

“Traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap,” reads a slide in the PowerPoint deck outlining its rationale and goals.

It calls for what OPRF leaders describe as “competency-based grading, eliminating zeros from the grade book…encouraging and rewarding growth over time.”

Teachers are being instructed how to measure student “growth” while keeping the school leaders' political ideology in mind.

“Teachers and administrators at OPRFHS will continue the process necessary to make grading improvements that reflect our core beliefs,” the plan states, promising to “consistently integrate equitable assessment and grading practices into all academic and elective courses” by fall 2023.

According to the Illinois State Board of Education, 38 percent of OPRF sophomore students taking the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) failed.

The OPRF failure rate was 77 percent for black students, 49 percent for Hispanics, 27 percent for Asians and 25 percent for whites.

[Doctor Phibes]

Being a manager roughly 10 years from now will be an absolute hoot.

[Catseye3]

George, you need to quit making up this screwy stuff.

Who'd be stupid enough to believe anything this whack???

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Changing Grades:

Being a manager roughly 10 years from now will be an absolute hoot.

I was thinking something along these lines as well. The purpose of education is to, ahem, educate.

So if these kiddos in suburban Chicago can't read, spell, or do simple math(s), what will they do when they leave high-school? After all, there are only so many burger-flipper jobs out there.

For years, OPRF had a very good reputation. I wonder how it is now.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Changing Grades:

So if these kiddos in suburban Chicago can't read, spell, or do simple math(s), what will they do when they leave high-school? After all, there are only so many burger-flipper jobs out there.

If they haven't even learned to show up, it won't really matter.

[jon-nyc]

“Traditional grading practices perpetuate inequities and intensify the opportunity gap,” reads a slide in the PowerPoint deck outlining its rationale and goals.

No. Traditional grading practices provide equal opportunity. Race based grading simply hides the very real performance gap.

[Mik]

Deceit <> equality. if I were a black parent, I'd be screaming over this.

[89th]

@Mik said in Changing Grades:

Deceit <> equality. if I were a black parent, I'd be screaming over this.

Not when your kid comes up with a 5.3 GPA on a 4.0 scale.

[Mik]

Come on, this is the product of the worst kind of racism - low expectations. It says they are not capable of better. Making it easier to underachieve will just make things worse.

[Catseye3]

@Mik said in Changing Grades:

Come on, this is the product of the worst kind of racism - low expectations. It says they are not capable of better. Making it easier to underachieve will just make things worse.

POTD!

[Axtremus]

This sentence caught my eyes: “Traditional student grades include non-academic criteria that do not reflect student learning gains—including participation and on-time homework submission."

The “non-academic criteria” spoken here are indeed weighed very little or ignored by most of Asia when it comes to grading students, with one of two big tests determine the student’s final grade for a class. The attitude seems to be: “who cares if you attend class or do your homework? Just show how much you have mastered the material (through testing) near the end of class and that’s your grade.”

(Truancy is dealt with by other disciplinary actions, not reflected through academic grades.)

It’s a different philosophy where grades overwhelmingly measure “how much you know” rather than “how much efforts you have put in.”

That said, it does not read like that’s all the OPRF is going for. On balance, the OPRF proposal still reads more like it’s trying to mask problems rather than helping students learn.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Catseye3 said in Changing Grades:

@Mik said in Changing Grades:

Come on, this is the product of the worst kind of racism - low expectations. It says they are not capable of better. Making it easier to underachieve will just make things worse.

POTD!

I think we need to re-evaluate how we award Post of the Day. The current system disproportionately rewards people who post clever stuff most people agree with, and discriminates against people whose main talent in life is posting knob-jokes, and/or pointing out grammatical errors.

[George K]

@Doctor-Phibes said in Changing Grades:

I think we need to re-evaluate how we award Post of the Day.

Yes, and it should be at the freaking END of the day (unless it's @Klaus, for whom the end of the day will be sooner).

[Mik]

NO ONE asked either of you knobheads.

Harrumph.

[Doctor Phibes]

@George-K said in Changing Grades:

@Doctor-Phibes said in Changing Grades:

I think we need to re-evaluate how we award Post of the Day.

Yes, and it should be at the freaking END of the day (unless it's @Klaus, for whom the end of the day will be sooner).

The chances of it being Klaus seem pretty slim. His main connection to POTD's was when he accidentally deleted all of them.

[Catseye3]

@Mik said in Changing Grades:

NO ONE asked either of you knobheads.
Harrumph.

That's right. And furthermore, in my own defense, the post I marked POTD was so unparalleled in its brilliance that it is inconceivable that anyone could have surpassed it, anyway.

So there.

[Mik]

You are wise beyond your years.

[Doctor Phibes]

[Mik]

[Copper]

This will eliminate the possibility that a minority student might actually achieve.

Apparently they will get help whether they need it or not.

Remember when the Air Force said the last fighter pilot has already been born?

The last minority person ever to actually achieve good grades has already graduated.