IL: Chicago suburban schools to introduce race based grading. No more "F"s for blacks

[Anti Federalist]

IL: Chicago suburban schools to introduce race based grading. No more "F"s for blacks

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

https://westcooknews.com/stories/62...e-based-grading-system-in-2022-23-school-year

By LGIS News Service
May 30, 2022

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.

"Signal and reinforce districts’ DEIJ values”

Advocates for so-called "equity based" grading practices, which seek to raise the grade point averages of black students and lower scores of higher-achieving Asian, white and Hispanic ones, say new grading criteria are necessary to further school districts' mission of DEIJ, or "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice."

"By training teachers to remove the non-academic factors from their grading practices and recognize when personal biases manifest, districts can proactively signal a clear commitment toward DEIJ," said Margaret Sullivan, associate director at the Education Advisory Board, which sells consulting services to colleges and universities.

Sullivan calls grading based on traditional classroom testing and homework performance “outdated practices” and foster "unconscious biases."

"Teachers may unintentionally let non-academic factors—like student behavior or whether a student showed up to virtual class—interfere with their final evaluation of students.," she said. “Traditional student grades include non-academic criteria that do not reflect student learning gains—including participation and on-time homework submission."

School districts across the U.S. are "experimenting with getting rid of zero-to-100 point scales and other strategies to keep missed assignments from dramatically bringing down overall grades," according to a March Associated Press report. "Others are allowing students to retake tests and turn work in late. Also coming under scrutiny are extra-credit assignments than can favor students with more advantages."

The report interviewed science teacher Brad Beadell of Santa Clara, Calif., who said he has "stopped giving zeros and deducting points for late work" as well as allowing students "unlimited retakes for quizzes and tests."

Fiorenza called for a switch to race-based grading last August, after issuing a report chronicling a spike in "F" grades by OPRF students in the 2020-21 school year.

"OPRF’s administration will adopt language that makes and keeps the system visible and continues to name racism as a complex interconnected structure," she wrote. "We must recognize the unique challenges faced during the pandemic intensify the need for a systemic approach to confronting the racial and socioeconomic discrepancies often experienced by our underrepresented student population."

Last year, West Cook News reported on an adjusted grade point average scale implemented by OPRF teacher Fiona Hill. It lowered the score for an "F" to 19 percent.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Reason to homeschool #89726.

 

[Occam's Banana]

"I love it when people say Ayn Rand's villains are too cartoonish and unrealistic." -- Michael Malice

 

[jmdrake]

Reason to homeschool #89726.

Some homeschool curricula got rid of the concept of grades or grade levels long ago. Just saying.

https://www.theunlikelyhomeschool.com/2017/03/without-grade-levels.html

And in Finland, while they still have grades, grades are no longer as "test centric" as the are in other countries.

https://finland.fi/life-society/the-truth-about-finnish-schools/

Claim 9: There will be no more tests and exams.

Response:
No.

“Evaluation will become continuous, guiding and supportive. Grades will not be based on test results alone. Tests are part of learning, but not the heart of it. You can also demonstrate your ability by realising projects or through oral presentations. If you fail in a test, you can try again later, and learn things in between,” says Anneli Rautiainen.
​

Of course nobody automatically thinks what Finland is doing or what homeschoolers are doing have anything to do with "race" because....it doesn't. Finland is overwhelmingly white and homeschools are the ethnicity of whatever that home is.

 

[jmdrake]

"I love it when people say Ayn Rand's villains are too cartoonish and unrealistic." -- Michael Malice

Compare Finland's PISA scores to that of the United States and get back with me.

Edit: And before anybody says "That's just cause of black kids", the Finn PISA scores are significantly better than white American PISA scores as well.

https://isteve.blogspot.com/2013/12/overall-pisa-rankings-include-america.html

And that is why local control of education is good. The Michael Moore's of the world want "one size fits all." (Really, progressive friends and family who've watched his documentary come away with the "Abolish private schools" message. The Finns actually didn't abolish private schools, only for profit private schools. But none of the private schools in America that I'm personally familiar with are for profit. And the ones that are for profit...are really damn good. But I know one private school in Nashville that is for profit and the creator of it also built a charter school so that inner city poor kids could get a good education. And I know of a free private Christian school in Birmingham that has all expenses covered by an endowment. But I'm digressing here.)

 

[Occam's Banana]

Compare Finland's PISA scores to that of the United States and get back with me.

Sure. Finland is relevant because what Chicago et al. are doing is implementing Finnish education policies. rolleyes: right back at'cha.)

As you yourself noted earlier, Finland is overwhelmingly white - and so obviously, those superior scores are attributable to nothing more than the product of Euro-caucasian privilege.

Get back with me when the increasingly woke and race-obsessed insanities of America's education policies start producing scores comparable to what they used to be in America back in the day (and to hell with Finland). Maybe by then the irony of invoking scores and ranks in defense of policies that explicitly downplay or reject the value of scoring and ranking will have worn off.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Some homeschool curricula got rid of the concept of grades or grade levels long ago. Just saying.

My problem with this is that, (and I'm admittedly reading between the lines here, maybe it won't actually be the case) is that white and possibly Asian kids will be held to a different standard than black ones. White kids will still be expected to comply with all the rules, edicts and fatwas but black kids will get a pass, numerous passes from the sounds of it, yet both will achieve the same grade in the end.

This was the case with both of my children, homeschooled from day one and neither were held to a very strict grading system.

But when standards were needed they were both held to the same ones.

I think the real question is this:

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

Why?

Oak Park is one of the most leftist communities in the US. It is Berkeley or Cambridge of the midwest.

They have spent millions and millions on education trying to change that.

And that right there may be the answer.

 

[Dr.3D]

Everybody is a winner, everybody get's a prize.

 

[jmdrake]

Sure. Finland is relevant because what Chicago et al. are doing is implementing Finnish education policies. rolleyes: right back at'cha.)

As you yourself noted earlier, Finland is overwhelmingly white - and so obviously, those superior scores are attributable to nothing more than the product of Euro-caucasian privilege.

Get back with me when the increasingly woke and race-obsessed insanities of America's education policies start producing scores comparable to what they used to be in America back in the day (and to hell with Finland). Maybe by then the irony of invoking scores and ranks in defense of policies that explicitly downplay or reject the value of scoring and ranking will have worn off.

And yet compare to white Americans, Finland is doing better. So... you missed the point I was making about race. I'll spell it out for you. WHEN YOU COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES THE WHITE FINNS DO BETTE THAN THE WHITE AMERICANS. A basic class in statistical analysis is in order my friend. And yes, that's math.

 

[Anti Globalist]

So basically if a black student wanted to, they could fail a test by intentionally getting every problem/question wrong and they won't be a failing grade.

 

[tod evans]

So in essence black students aren't capable of performing as well as other racial demographics on standardized tests and because of their melanin must be graded on a curve that some arbitrary group deems inclusive?

Yeah, well fuck that!

Inbred hillbillies have far less going for them than suburban black students, unless they're inbred too?

But the purpose of testing and grading is to sort the wheat from the chaff not to homogenize the blend in order to increase yield.

There's a reason Juan-Rodriguez-López-Gonzalez-Hernandez isn't generally found on basset-ball shirts and it's okay.

People are different and that's okay too!

Fuck feel-good inclusivity!

 

[Anti Federalist]

And yet compare to white Americans, Finland is doing better. So... you missed the point I was making about race. I'll spell it out for you. WHEN YOU COMPARE APPLES TO APPLES THE WHITE FINNS DO BETTE THAN THE WHITE AMERICANS. A basic class in statistical analysis is in order my friend. And yes, that's math.

Finns also report being the most happy and contented with life.

This is fact of nature disregarded by multi culti Marxists around the world.

People do best and enjoy life most and live longer and happier lives when they live and work and build families and pass away and worship and learn in smaller, less populated communities of people that look like and act like and believe in the same things as their neighbors do.

 

[Okie RP fan]

So in essence black students aren't capable of performing as well as other racial demographics on standardized tests and because of their melanin must be graded on a curve that some arbitrary group deems inclusive?

Yeah, well $#@! that!

Inbred hillbillies have far less going for them than suburban black students, unless they're inbred too?

But the purpose of testing and grading is to sort the wheat from the chaff not to homogenize the blend in order to increase yield.

There's a reason Juan-Rodriguez-López-Gonzalez-Hernandez isn't generally found on basset-ball shirts and it's okay.

People are different and that's okay too!

$#@! feel-good inclusivity!

I'm curious, are these leftists tacitly telling us that Blacks and some other minorities are incapable of keeping up with White/Asian standards?
And for the record, I'm not endorsing that view, necessarily. Just asking because that's what it looks like to me.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

Will the kids have to know how to read and write before they graduate?

 

[jmdrake]

My problem with this is that, (and I'm admittedly reading between the lines here, maybe it won't actually be the case) is that white and possibly Asian kids will be held to a different standard than black ones. White kids will still be expected to comply with all the rules, edicts and fatwas but black kids will get a pass, numerous passes from the sounds of it, yet both will achieve the same grade in the end.

Okay....I seriously don't get how you get that from the article. If "F's" are dropped from the grading scale then "F's" are dropped. White kids who sometimes get F's will "benefit" just as much as black kids who sometimes get F's. It's like if you lower the basketball goal from 10 feet to 9 feet. If one ethnic group is on average taller and/or can jump higher than more people from the shorter ethnic group will be able to dunk but that doesn't mean the taller ethnic group is being held to a higher standard.

This was the case with both of my children, homeschooled from day one and neither were held to a very strict grading system.

And I'm sure that was less stress for all of you! I was home schooled one year in the Seventh Day Adventist home school system which is (or was back in 1982) designed to be as strict as any school curriculum in the world since it's used all over the world. So...we had to do EVERY homework problem. And we went through EVERY page of EVERY book. In U.S. History we went from Christopher Columbus to Jimmy Carter and that's only because Reagan hadn't made it into that edition. (As a consequence I knew more about U.S. History than my high school history teacher and that was at a private school.) And that's the great thing about educational freedom! You as a parent should be able to choose what best fits your child.

But when standards were needed they were both held to the same ones.

Okay. I have twins and they learn very differently. I'll go by initials C and M. When they were toddlers I was using the book "Teach Your Baby To Read." Child M was GREAT at that but child C didn't seem to get it at all. I thought child M was smarter. I didn't stick with what was working for child M and I still regret that. Well when they went to "normal" school, A,B,Cs and 1, 2, 3's, child C excelled and child M didn't. Their in college now. Child C is still excelling. I'm working with child M. Bottom line is, even kids in the same house born to the same parents are different. Shouldn't the "standard" be whatever helps that particular child reach his or her highest potential? Right before and during COVID I had some homeless teens living with me. (They weren't exactly homeless. They had parents who kind of sort of had homes. But these parents were beyond sorry. Two different families actually. So four sorry parents.) One was telling me how much he didn't like chemistry. I said "I know. Chemistry is hard." He was like "No. It's not hard. It's easy to me. But I want to be a diesel mechanic. So why do I have to take chemistry?" Hmmmm....Paging Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs!" The kid has a point. The only reason to make students take chemistry is because 1) SOME of them might go into the sciences and 2) it helps boost a schools ACT scores. Of course the SAT doesn't have science in it. But that penalizes kids who might be good at science but struggle with language arts. And why isn't the mechanically inclined kid rewarded for his abilities? My kids went to a private academy. Home economics and shop have been phased out of most schools public and private. Kids can take computer classes but never learn how to change a tire let alone change oil. They can't cook, clean up, balance a checkbook, make change. How is any of this good for society?

I'm trying to find an article from some years ago where some juvenile delinquents in an alternative school winning the Detroit Auto Show with a diesel hybrid before hybrids were "cool." And FTR they were mostly black. In the alternative school they went from being D students to being on the honor roll. Imagine the difference it makes giving children something to learn that is actually relevant?

I think the real question is this:



Why?

Oak Park is one of the most leftist communities in the US. It is Berkeley or Cambridge of the midwest.

They have spent millions and millions on education trying to change that.

And that right there may be the answer.

They've spent millions on education trying to treat people with different backgrounds, interests, learning styles and strengths and weaknesses exactly the same. No room for innovation or customization.

 

[jmdrake]

So basically if a black student wanted to, they could fail a test by intentionally getting every problem/question wrong and they won't be a failing grade.

The white student, according to my reading of this, could do exactly the same. And......so? If a kid doesn't want to learn a kid doesn't want to learn. How about inspiring the kid to WANT to learn? Some martial arts schools award black belts. Some just teach people how to fight. The ones that just teach people how to fight are at the top of the UFC right now.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

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.

Not sure that the writer of this article gets that right, or the whole thing is based on a slight of hand. Is this about test scores, or is it about grades? They are not the same thing.

Some subjects are very easy to objectively test. Math, spelling, most science, etc have definitive answers. Those are test scores.

So they want to make the overall grading system more subjective, and sensitive to race factors?

Hasn't that been the problem all along? They graduate students who can’t pass objective competency tests. They get a passing grade, but can’t pass a test.

So how is this supposed to help them with test scores? And what could go possibly go wrong by making grading a subjective exercise, where the teacher has complete control with no objective criteria or checks? Should schools become nothing more than an exercise in kissing the ass of a potentially deranged teacher?

I would like to see these cases of black kids who could ace the tests, but get a failing grade because they skip class or don't turn their homework in on time. That appears to be the “problem” they are trying to solve.

 

[oyarde]

So basically if a black student wanted to, they could fail a test by intentionally getting every problem/question wrong and they won't be a failing grade.

As you know I wouldve had to identify as black so nobody would act surprised when I didnt do my homework.

 

[dannno]

The white student, according to my reading of this, could do exactly the same. And......so? If a kid doesn't want to learn a kid doesn't want to learn. How about inspiring the kid to WANT to learn? Some martial arts schools award black belts. Some just teach people how to fight. The ones that just teach people how to fight are at the top of the UFC right now.

Re-read the article with this framing, and get back to me about Finland..

Democrats do not take into account human motivation in any of their policies.

Every sentence in that article, that's all I could think about.

You can turn in your assignments late. You can re-take a test. You don't get knocked as hard for missing assignments completely. Ban extra-credit assignments. Do absolutely nothing and still receive a passing grade.

How do any of those policies increase the motivation to do assignments or study for tests? They all do the opposite.

 

[Anti Federalist]

Okay....I seriously don't get how you get that from the article. If "F's" are dropped from the grading scale then "F's" are dropped. White kids who sometimes get F's will "benefit" just as much as black kids who sometimes get F's. It's like if you lower the basketball goal from 10 feet to 9 feet. If one ethnic group is on average taller and/or can jump higher than more people from the shorter ethnic group will be able to dunk but that doesn't mean the taller ethnic group is being held to a higher standard.

From the OP:

Advocates for so-called "equity based" grading practices, which seek to raise the grade point averages of black students and lower scores of higher-achieving Asian, white and Hispanic ones, say new grading criteria are necessary to further school districts' mission of DEIJ, or "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Justice."

Moving on...

Bottom line is, even kids in the same house born to the same parents are different. Shouldn't the "standard" be whatever helps that particular child reach his or her highest potential?

Yes, to a certain degree. But there is also a need for standards and being taught that meeting them is needed and necessary.

One was telling me how much he didn't like chemistry. I said "I know. Chemistry is hard." He was like "No. It's not hard. It's easy to me. But I want to be a diesel mechanic. So why do I have to take chemistry?" Hmmmm....Paging Mike Rowe of "Dirty Jobs!" The kid has a point. The only reason to make students take chemistry is because 1) SOME of them might go into the sciences and 2) it helps boost a schools ACT scores. Of course the SAT doesn't have science in it. But that penalizes kids who might be good at science but struggle with language arts. And why isn't the mechanically inclined kid rewarded for his abilities? My kids went to a private academy. Home economics and shop have been phased out of most schools public and private. Kids can take computer classes but never learn how to change a tire let alone change oil. They can't cook, clean up, balance a checkbook, make change. How is any of this good for society?

You and Mike make a valid point and I agree to a certain extent...but.

I quit school when I was 16 to pursue a life at sea. I can remember failing advanced math in my last year of school and saying the same thing "Why the hell do I need to learn this to catch fish?"

It was years later while working toward an advanced level Master's license that I realized I would need at least a working knowledge of algebra and spherical trig to pass tests on and utilize celestial bodies for precise navigation.

It was a lot of work to teach myself that 20 years after the fact.

Being a diesel mechanic? Having spent thousands of hours twisting wrenches on floating diesel junk, I can think of hundreds of instances where a practical knowledge of chemistry assisted me in my job and completing it safely and effectively.

I'm trying to find an article from some years ago where some juvenile delinquents in an alternative school winning the Detroit Auto Show with a diesel hybrid before hybrids were "cool." And FTR they were mostly black. In the alternative school they went from being D students to being on the honor roll. Imagine the difference it makes giving children something to learn that is actually relevant?

Again, I could not agree more.

Maybe more "practical" math and sciences are what is needed.

And more apprentice trades programs. I cannot remember much of anything taught in a classroom at 58 years old, but I still remember the skills that Mr. B taught me in machine shop class.

But here's the thing, I was still held to a standard. Mr. B used to carry around "Go-No Go" gauges in his pocket protector, and he had no problem in junking your work and making you do it again if it was out of tolerance.

Life or death can ride on whether a machine part is one thousandth of inch out of spec.

That's why standards, and learning to meet them, are important.