This oughta produce some real fine, productive members of society

San Diego Unifed schools will be removing “non-academic factors” from student’s grades. Non-academic factors include class behavior, tardiness, turning in homework late. They’ll also be given repeated chances to redo failed work so they can show progress in “mastery of standards.” Why would the public school system in San Diego want to turn out graduates who can’t perform as responsible adults? Racism. Apparently their data shows that the white kids behave better, turn in papers on time, and don’t have extra responsibilities at home that impact their abilities to learn. It sounds pretty racist to me that they’re saying black, Native, and Hispanic kids can’t be expected to turn work in on time or need a Mulligan to do good on a test. But what do I know?

Starting this school year San Diego Unified will eliminate non-academic factors, such as student behavior, from academic grades, following a unanimous vote by the school board Tuesday to overhaul the district’s grading practices.

The changes are partly to address racial and other disparities in current grading practices, officials said.

District data have shown that Black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific Islander high school students are significantly more likely to be given D and F grades.

Black students received D or F grades 20 percent of the time and Hispanic students received them 23 percent of the time, while White students received them 7 percent of the time and Asian students received them 6 percent of the time, according to data from the first semester of the last school year. The districtwide average for D and F grades was 16 percent.

Meanwhile students with disabilities and English learners were given D and F grades 25 percent and 30 percent of the time, respectively.

Experts, teachers and students have said that including non-academic factors into grades and not giving students second chances to learn or make progress can contribute to unfair disparities in grades.

For example, a student may have struggles related to home or other responsibilities that impact their ability to turn in work on time or learn content before a test. Common grading practices such as averaging a student’s grade over time can disadvantage students who started the year behind grade level and can discredit the progress a student has made, experts have said.

With the new policy adopted Tuesday, academic grades will only be about showing progress toward “mastery of standards,” rather than rewarding students for completing a certain quantity of work, according to San Diego Unified’s new grading policy, which will be implemented over this year and next.

This approach is called “standards-based grading,” which has been the norm for elementary grades in San Diego Unified for years, said Kisha Borden, president of the teachers union. The changes approved Tuesday will primarily impact middle and high school students.

Students will no longer be docked in their academic grades for turning work in late or other factors related to work habits. Those aspects of student behavior will be judged in a separate citizenship grade.

Rather than getting one chance to get a good grade, students will be given additional chances to revise their work and show improvement.

The absolute best part is what happens when a student gets caught cheating. Have a cocktail ready, because this will anger up the blood something fierce.

Under the new grading policy, when a student is caught cheating, schools must give the student a chance to reflect on what he or she did, repair trust and receive counseling or other help.

This is the Apu Nahasapeemapetilon school of child discipline.

School Board President John Lee Evans said;

“Our current grading system is working very well for what it was intended to do, and what it was intended to do was to classify students and to put them into categories and basically push them in a certain direction.”

Well if it ain’t broke, then why you trying to fix it, Buddy? Apparently we shouldn’t be pushing our kids in the direction of being able to act respectful, do their work on time, and not cheat.

Source; San Diego Tribune

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