Will Bay Area schools' switch to equity grading help or harm students?

"Equity" is a hot-button word, but it really just amounts to a general change in how grading is done:

> "The goal is to lower the impact of things that “fluff” grades – extra credit, class participation and homework – while also making it easier for lower-performing students to bounce back from failing."

The other change is

> "remove the practice of awarding zero points for assignments as long as they were “reasonably attempted.”"

Unless this leads to many more kids passing when they should be failing, or kids who would've gotten an A slack off, it seems like a tempest in a teacup

The issue is that on the top end, students are increasing their GPAs through "fluff" (like extra-credit assignments) that don't actually demonstrate how well they understand the material. And on the bottom end, students are getting 0s for late assignments and discipline issues that also don't demonstrate how well they understand the material.

I support the removal of the "fluff" for the high end.

But to the extent that solving for the low end negatively impacts students on the high end, why not adopt a parallel system where students' grades are calculated under both systems and provide the grade that benefits the student most?

An 85 and 99 getting the same grade? Genius idea /s

Paging Harrison Bergeron

They should rename it "Idiocracy." More untested, evidence-free sociological experimentation on kids with subjective grading geared towards increasing biases against merit and arbitrary grade inflation while lowering standards. This reeks of the stench of abolishing phonics all over again, but on both the input side of eliminating work and on the output side of putting thumbs on the scale of how grades are measured. It's not outside of the realm of possibility that universities will gradually refuse to accept under-prepared high school graduates who received substandard educations through no fault of their own, and/or will instead water down their own grading standards (greater breadth and depth than Ivy grade inflation) to keep their stats up, leading to a less prepared, less rigorous, and more ignorant demographic of college graduates. For over 60 years, California's state education apparatus has allowed arbitrary meddling by so-called "experts"; this should be forbidden and replaced with legitimate, evidence-based decision-making overseeing statewide standards and publishing best practices that demonstrably work.

PS: End NCLBA. It was an abject failure mandated by know-nothing, arrogant neocons who went on an ideological crusade to squander resources and harm education with their "help".