Equitable grading
“Equitable grading” Carmel Pine Cone – August 4, 2023
This week, the Pacific Grove Board of Education took a radical step in the direction of DEI for learning by introducing the concept of “Equitable Grading,” which would toss out the true and tested method of competency-based grading in favor of DEI-like standards which could include a student’s conformity to certain behaviors, and weight on the family’s background and income, and not mastery of the subject. Your kids will now be judged on their ability to conform to DEI standards of behavior as judged by others. Parents don’t want it, and the kids don’t need it.
Just last week the Dublin/San Ramon School system suspended equitable grading and Clark County School District (Las Vegas) did the same after seeing the negative effects of equitable grading on students and teachers.
A science teacher at Dublin High School told the school board that equitable grading “Left students discouraged and confused and some to develop study skills that would later result in lower AP scores.”
The Los Angeles school system went to equitable grading in 2021. The result: 73 percent of 11th graders earned A’s, B’s, or C’s but only 19 percent met grade-level math standards, and chronic absenteeism rocketed to 46 percent.
The Pacific Grove school board should know a significant number of districts that implemented equitable grading are now scrambling to change back to the traditional system. Many districts across the county have concluded that:
- e.g., demotivates high-performing students.
- e.g., leads to “grade inflation.”
- e.g., resulted in student confusion leading to poor study skills.
- e.g., has resulted in lower AP performance.
Schools who have tried equitable grading have had disastrous results and are throwing the system out. Equitable grading is another failed DEI-driven policy invented by expensive consultants, elite college professors and the teachers union. And such foolish practice only benefits our international rivals by continuing to drive down our academic test scores, graduation
rates and to produce kids who cannot compete in the international economy for the best jobs.
Call or write to the Pacific Grove School Board and tell them we don’t want a DEI-like grading system. That we must provide a world-class education to equip every kid with the SKA’s,
Skills, Knowledge & Abilities, to compete at the highest levels and thrive in a truly flat global economy. The future of America is at stake.
Dr. Michael E. Gibbs, Resident of Pacific Grove