Survey shows teachers despise ‘equitable’ grading policies

ANALYSIS — UPDATED

Here’s something that should come as little surprise in more ways than one: Teachers aren’t fans of so-called “equitable” grading policies. 

Equitable grading, “popularized” by former teacher Joe Feldman according to Education Week, includes things like no zeroes for not failing to turn in an assignment, no penalties for late work, and “unlimited retakes on tests and quizzes.”

“Advocates say that equitable grading policies make assessing students’ work more accurate by prioritizing summative over formative assessments, separating academic from behavioral performance, and subsequently reducing subjectivity in the overall grading process,” Ed Week reports.

“But skeptics argue the approach can compromise rigor and lead to grade inflation.”

Guess who many of those skeptics are? Merely those expected to implement it – teachers. 

Perhaps that’s why they have “largely been missing from the conversation” on equitable grading, according to the article. School district administrators, particularly those at the central office, occasionally have to show their mettle, so they latch onto a trendy new edu-fad that’s hip at university colleges of education. 

That’s essentially what San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Maria Su did, even bypassing her own board of education and telling the district to begin “negotiating” with Feldman regarding trainings.

Using the RAND American Educator Panel, the Fordham Institute discovered teachers in the trenches “found the [equitable] grading practices named in the[ir] survey to be harmful to student achievement.”

“81% of respondents agreed that ‘giving partial credit for assignments never turned in’ is harmful to academic engagement.” Eighty percent of minority teachers felt the same, “which seems notable given that equitable grading practices are designed to be ‘bias-resistant.’”

Other findings include 59 and 44 percent of teachers respectively saying “basing part of a student’s grade on participation or homework is helpful” (vs. 13 and 25 percent who don’t).

One teacher wrote in the Fordham survey “I am an educator with 33 years in the classroom, and I see a terrible trend […] students are starting to feel entitled to points for nothing.”

Another said “Sometimes it feels like the only acceptable grades are A-, A, and A+.”

Feldman (pictured) claims grading homework and class participation “can muddy the accuracy of the grade, as [they] no longer reflect a student’s true understanding of the course content.”

He believes “people who support traditional grading are very interested in motivation as compliance, whereas equitable grading talks about motivation in terms of personal responsibility.”

I concur with Feldman somewhat on homework and participation; during my teaching tenure my strategy for the former was to weigh it substantially less than assessments and projects, but with the latter students could accumulate “bonus points” towards their grade, typically during review activities for assessments.

I fail to see, however, how equitable grading serves the “motivation in terms of personal responsibility” angle. How is it personally responsible to be given 50 percent for not turning something in? And no late penalties for same? How is it personally responsible to get unlimited chances to take an assessment?  

As I asked back in May: Will company managers and supervisors permit “retakes and redos”? Are we likely to see something like this in the real world: “Hey Joe — that company decided to go with another contractor because you never submitted our bid. But no worries … take another stab at it with the next company, ok?”

UPDATE: The article was amended to correct that the RAND Institute had no role in the survey other than Fordham’s use of its (RAND) American Educator Panel data.