Virginia Teachers Object to ‘Equity’ Proposal to Abolish Grades and Late Homework Penalties
“We believe that these changes will impact student learning and socio-emotional development and growth in a negative way.”
This is not preparing students for life in the real world. It’s endless excuses for failure.
WJLA News reports:
Va. teachers push back on equity proposal to abolish some grades, late homework penalties
Based on feedback from the Arlington School Board, the Arlington Public Schools system is focusing on what they call more equitable grading practices.
The preliminary proposal calls for
- No late penalties for homework – because the proposal says it leads to inaccurate grades as it reflects on student’s behavior and not student achievement
- No extra credit – as the proposal says extra credit leads to biased grades and penalizes students with fewer resources
- Unlimited redoes and retakes on assignment
- No grading for homework as the proposal says mistakes are vital to learning and students are less likely to take risks when they fear they will be graded down for making a mistakes
Teachers from Wakefield High School sent a letter to the Arlington County Superintendent that said the proposal is anything but equitable and would impact the neediest of students as they prepare for the future.
Dear Arlington School Board members and Dr. Duran:
As educators with decades of experience in APS, we are extremely concerned with several changes proposed in the new grading and homework policy. We believe that these changes will impact student learning and socio-emotional development and growth in a negative way. The changes, if implemented, will also result in the decline of high expectations and rigor in the classroom across all APS high schools. We agree that homework, summer assignments, summative as well as formative assessments need to be meaningful, engaging, and be clearly communicated/explained to students and their families; however, if proposed changes are implemented, the accountability “piece” of the learning process will exist in theory only.
In addition to learning how to construct an effective argument in writing, solve math equations, or properly conduct science experiments, as students matriculate through high school, they also learn how to develop organizational, time and stress management skills and grow as responsible, civically engaged, and considerate young adults.
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Comments
“No late penalties for homework – because the proposal says it leads to inaccurate grades as it reflects on student’s behavior and not student achievement”
Isn’t that the entire point of Chinese social credit scores?
Make up your mind what you want, lefties!
“the proposal says mistakes are vital to learning and students are less likely to take risks when they fear they will be graded down for making a mistakes”
Genius! Derek Chauvin, Kim Potter, and Munilla Construction Management should immediately raise this issue on appeal.
How about eliminating homework (other than ‘study’) entirely for k-5 and align education goals with actual developmentally appropriate curriculum? You know, follow the science rather than politics.
Arlington VA is an exceptional public school system — it offers better pay than neighboring jurisdictions, It teaches students from about 50 different countries whose native language is not English. It offers a wide variety of course, including foreign language instruction for Chinese. It has its own planetarium. It offers vocational training in a separate Career Center campus. It has a very high degree of parental engagement. We will have to watch carefully to see where it goes in the future, but the school board has been some well educated, well informed community leaders.
I’m still looking for the point to be made.