Welcome to Education in Focus, I'm your host, I'm Liana Kernodel. As teachers begin another school year and approach their first grade book deadlines, some school districts are adopting more "equity grading reforms". Joining me to discuss this is Shotboard News editor Brendan Clary. Brendan, what are these equitable grading reforms? Yeah, that's a great question, and I think that they take a lot of different kinds of shapes, so there's different ways to change the grading so that it doesn't, basically it softens the impact of maybe don't turn something in, what is the minimum amount that you can get, and I think that that's sort of the, there are different ways to describe it, and there are different people who say this is equitable, and then you have critics of that saying, well, it's not just equitable, it's great inflation, and what you're doing is kind of dumbing down, or like watering down the sort of rigor of what teachers should expect students to perform on in terms, like with their academic work, right? So I think that that's the kind of tension is like what is an equitable grading policy versus you know one of these sort of lesser rigorous grading policy, essentially to get into that, like let's use for example, like this semester Kansas City Public School District in Kansas City, Missouri, they have you know what they call like a no fail policy or an equitable grading policy, and it basically moves the failing grade instead of a 0 to 59%, that's now 40 to 59%. So what they did is they said instead of getting a 0 on a project you're getting 40, like that's the lowest you can get now, so you basically are taking that bottom of like, okay you didn't turn anything in, and like the lowest you're getting, you're still technically failing, but the way that they're, you know, you're getting sort of a boost even though you didn't turn anything in. So I think that that's sort of the equitable, I guess like that's what you know what an advocate would say is like that's more equitable. So again, like the the school district's chief academic officer, Dr. Waitanya Franklin, he told a local news station that these changes intend to reduce the adverse effects of zeros on students' grades, emphasizing growth and progress support and intervention and authentic learning and equity, which is, you know, a very long sentence, but essentially they're saying, hey, this is going to help students and, you know, others have kind of commented that if you, you know, don't turn a couple of things in, but you do the rest of your work and you're getting, you know, 80s and 90s and 100s on your exams, then shouldn't you, should you still be punished for those? So I think that, you know, there's an argument there, right, of like, do you, if you don't get a test in, what you do very badly on an assignment, well, yeah, you just, you don't get something in because of maybe a life circumstance out of your control, then should you have to pay the price for that all the way through the semester? And so that's, I think, one of the other sort of lines that an advocate for equitable grading policy would have. Yeah, it's sort of effectively weighting successes higher than failures. Right. That would, that's a great way to put it. So basically reducing the harm of that missing assignment, for example, so that it's a 40. So what are the impacts of grading changes like this? Yeah, I think, I think that that is usually, so I think that kind of depends on who you ask. If you ask the advocates, I think they would say there's no harm in doing this. It was a very prominent advocate for these kind of equitable grading policies. His name is Joe Feldman. He's got a book called The Grading for Equity. And I think that that was, you know, quite popular with school leaders, right, talking about this. And essentially, there are some, some researchers specifically at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, and I'm specifically thinking of Adam Tiner, who co-authored a research brief and our reporter Austin Gergens at Chakwad News, he spoke with Tiner. And basically, he found out that the real world, you know, application of these policies generally means that there's a little evidence of greater learning and that they generally exacerbate grade inflation. So that's what, that's what the report said. Tiner, you know, was, was willing to share that, you know, that basically that they were the lower grading standards with these kinds of equitable grading, you know, policies. And so that, that report was, you know, it didn't pull punches, basically said, you know, these, uh, lenient grade policies, you know, they, uh, reduce expectations and accountability for students and they hamstring teachers ability to manage their classrooms and motivate students. And I think that they can also confuse parents and other stakeholders. That's what the report said. So, so all of this is, is coming from that forum, uh, Institute report. So I, I think really, and I mean, putting it really bluntly, the report said that lenient grading leads to less learning. Uh, so I think that that, that is kind of the, you know, the critical view of these, these grading policies. What effects do grading policies have on not just maybe what they will learn in that class, but kind of more over time from, from one grade to another, from one class to another. Yeah. I think, I think that, um, what, what Tyner told our reporter at chalkboard news was essentially that the short term and long term effects can be seen in, in a math context. So they found out that you learned less in algebra one, if you're assigned to an algebra one teacher who had lower grading standards, but that that effect here is over into geometry as well. So I think you, you would sort of take that, take that with you. And so I think that there's maybe a cumulative effect essentially described there of if you're following an equitable grading policy and they're not holding you to an high enough standard and you don't turn work in or you're not thinking about your work in, in that sort of rigorous way of like, here's what my, my teacher expects, then you go on to the next grade, uh, the next class and sort of building out that information, it's going to be weaker. And I think that that's sort of the argument that critics have of this is that essentially if you're not allowing students to fail, you're not holding them accountable for not turning in the work, which, and I, and I think that, uh, another like outside of the classroom kind of criticism that you have is people saying, well, look, I, if I turn in nothing at my job, I don't get a 40% I get a zero and I get fired, you know, like if I don't turn anything in, I'm not delivering that output. And I'm not actually learning what I need to learn in order for the real world. So I think that you kind of have to ask yourself, that's part of the question, right, of what is best for students, is it teaching them that, you know, their, their wins, uh, count more than their losses or do you teach them that it's important to be turning everything in on time because that is a fundamental part of the learning process or, you know, more broadly, that's a fundamental part of what it means to be, you know, a productive member of society. And I think that there are some of the larger implications as well that are sometimes invoked in this conversation. Uh, you, I've seen this in some news pieces, uh, some news articles about this, but sometimes I think might fly out of the radar. Yeah. And I mean, it also kind of plays into the question of, well, if there are life circumstances that get in the way of, of some assignment, are you having an ongoing conversation with your teachers and administrators about what's going on and communicating that? And if you are, then maybe this wouldn't necessarily be an issue. And like that carries over into the workforce as well, like being able to communicate about what's going on and why things aren't getting done. And obviously teachers have to not just dismiss everything as if it's the dog ate my homework like, cause sometimes there's genuine real circumstances that are out of your control, but it kind of plays into that element as well. Yeah. Absolutely. It's a, it's a very broad conversation, uh, I think we spend a lot more time on it. Well, Brendan, thank you for your insights on this story. Uh, listeners can keep up with this story and more at chalkboardnews.com. [inaudible]
