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Summary and audio linked here.
Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Full interview and summary linked here.
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Straight from the district. It’s not happening.
https://www.oprfhs.org/news/1742090/statement-regarding-grading-practices
Not race based, equity based. Outcome based. Making it easier to get better grades.
Lowering standards, racing to the bottom, defining deviancy down…call it what you will. That IS happening. Please read their suggested guideposts, the links are in the PPT.
The result:
https://patch.com/illinois/lagrange/teacher-resigns-lt
It isn’t racial necessarily. The philosophy behind this encourages the downward slide in educational standards by making achievement meaningless. I would call this ‘Participation Trophy Grading’, rather than the ‘Grading for Equity’ term they use.
See the quiz below, designed for teachers to show how equitable or inequitable their grading system/philosophy is. What this does is make it easier to get higher grades by lowering the bar to the grades.
It’s more like grade redistribution from the harder working students to the lazier students.
It certainly makes the A earned on the first try no more valuable than one earned on the second, third, fourth…
And not grading homework is insane.
High school teachers typically see something in the range of 125 students each day. Let’s do some simple math. If a person “grades” homework that takes more than a scan of it, requring both time-consuming thought and written feedback. Now, seriously, that take minimally 5 minutes or probably more like 10 minutes of its done with thoroughness. So, let’s be conservative here and say 5 minutes. You’ve just added roughly 10 hours to the teacher’s work day for each day he/she checks every student’s homework, and that’s beyond his/her class instruction time and whatever prep time is needed for his… Read more »
The ‘Teacher’s Quiz’ from their cited ‘Grading for Equity’ resources. 1. In the categories comprising your grade, how much do you weight homework? a) Less than 5% b) 20% c) 40% d) Over 50% Answer A reflects the most equitable grading. A student’s performance on homework should not be included in the grade. Doing so means we’re including unreliable data in a student’s grade (we don’t actually know who did the submitted homework, or with what assistance). Additionally, including homework performance in a grade rewards students with privilege and punishes those without it. Finally, it undermines the concept of homework… Read more »
2. Which do you agree with? a) Including students’ performance with “soft skills” in the grade is just as important as including performance on academic content. b) Grades are less accurate when behavior is included in the grade. c) It’s important to give students a “bump” in a grade when it’s clear they’ve put in effort. d) I agree with all of these statements. Answer B reflects the most equitable grading. When behavior, which includes “soft skills” is included in the grade, it leads to “omnibus” grading, which collapses disparate types of information about students and leads to grades that… Read more »
3. In your classroom, what happens if a student fails a summative assessment? a) We move forward without conversation; it’s better for the student to start a new unit b) The student has the option to retake the assessment (or a version of the assessment), and I average the new score with the previous score c) The student has the option to retake the assessment (or a version of the assessment), and I replace the previous score with the new score Answer C reflects the most equitable grading. Learning isn’t a race, and we don’t want to stop students from… Read more »
4. Which do you believe about your grading? a) There is a maximum number of students who should get an A. b) When a teacher assigns an F, s/he sends an important message about the seriousness of the class. c) The grade distribution in a group of students should generally follow a bell-shaped curve. d) Grades are based on external standards; there is no minimum or maximum number of students who can qualify for a grade. Answer D reflects the most equitable grading. When we limit the number of students who can receive a grade or believe that F’s invest… Read more »
5. What mathematics or scales do you use (or does your grading software use) to calculate a student’s performance over time? a) The gradebook software averages a student’s performance over time b) When a student earns a higher score on content than they had earned earlier, I replace the lower (earlier) score with the higher (more recent) score c) I primarily use a scale of 0-4 or A-F d) I primarily use a scale of 0-100 e) a and c f) b and c g) a and d h) b and d Answer F reflects the most equitable grading. When… Read more »
6. Why do you include a “Participation” category in the grade? a) I want to incentivize students to contribute to class discussions and be a “citizen” of the classroom b) I want to create opportunities for students who struggle academically to earn points for valuable “soft skills” c) I want to let students know that it’s important to listen and follow directions. d) I believe it’s important to penalize students who are disrespectful to peers or who detract from the classroom learning environment. e) all of the above f) none of these Answer F reflects the most equitable grading. While… Read more »
No matter whether one chooses the test-grades-only, tests-grades-primarily or tests-grades and other persona attributes approach for assigning student grades there’s a no-win aspect to each of them in some ways, and enough of it that teacher will get negative feedback from his students, some parents and even his school administration who all want “student happiness” as the bottom line for teacher grading. But, teachers jobs are SO easy! Yeah, you betcha.
Let the train keep on a rolling public schools demise is evident
The best part about this is not that OPRF are quietly discussing this and upset they’re being exposed but threat Crains ran a story calling the network of 21st century news gathering and dissemination “pink slime”. I’ll take my news pink and slimy over the brown bull sh*t Crains pumps out any day.
Looks like OPRF caught wind of the article: It has come to the District’s attention that a recent article in the online West Cook News inaccurately states that at the Board of Education’s May 26 meeting, Oak Park and River Forest High School announced that it will implement a race-based grading system in the 2022-2023 school year. This is not true. OPRFHS does not, nor has it ever had a plan to, grade any students differently based on race. The article contains a variety of misleading and inaccurate statements. The article’s mischaracterization of the Board meeting is unfortunate and has caused… Read more »
You do know this isn’t true. Go to the schools website where they are addressing the false new story. Talk about bad journalism.
Talk about BUSTED, walk it back quickly.
They never admit they’re wrong about anything.
And they never ever tell you what their agenda really is.
You should read the links to the school’s own materials in the article. It makes for interesting reading. But then it may not be as easy for you to ignore the convenient map that’s been drawn for you in the article. “We already know that all types of discontinuities in learning can disproportionately impact students of color, the impoverished, and already struggling students and that affluent learners may fair better due to additional resources (Allensworth & Scwartz, 2020; Betebenner & Wenning, 2021; Bomer, 2021; Sandberg-Patton & Reschly, 2013; Zaromb et al. 2014). We also know that school is synonymous with… Read more »
I think the truth is somewhere in between. I think West Cook News jumped to some conclusions which could have been cleared up if they bothered to contact the school district for clarification. That also would have been a good time to challenge them on their future plans. Instead we got a one-sided report that the district got to dismiss without directly answering any questions. A lost opportunity. OTOH, the school district seems to be doing a slow roll into what WCN implied, albeit maybe not as extreme. Again, the district is up to something – something that is not… Read more »
There’s only one way to achieve their equity based solutions approach. If they say it directly they get sued. Which is why they won’t say it outright. It will not be policy.
The teachers will know what to do without it being official written policy. If they don’t go with the program they’ll be hauled before the administration and the union will support their removal.
They will be doing exactly what the article indicated.
Thank you, Brock.
This policy is preparing students for adulthood responsibilities and success?
Bah!
They whine about teacher shortages yet continue to neuter the profession.
Well, I guess you have to go to college and get a degree in “teaching” (as contrasted with Education) for this to make any sense.
Good thing Illinois has scads of colleges and universities full of $100K + professors and $250K + administrators supervising slave-labor teaching assistants as they groom the next generations of woke public school teacher’s union members.
What could go wrong?
So if I am stupid, lazy, and I misbehave– and I am white– I get an F. But if I am stupid, lazy and violent and black– I get an A. Sounds like a truly racist grading system to me.
Or, may you’ve described an imagined exaggerated version of the concept to fit your argument. Don’t let common sense possibilities get in the way of a good argument.
Where’s that Kool-Aid so many of you love to drink?
So, as an employer, I will now need to check where an applicant attended school to understand the real capacity and achievement of a potential employee?
This isn’t the bigotry of low expectations, it is the explicit acknowledgement that these groups are simply inferior.
OPRF, is that what you are saying?
Wow. So much for Dr. King and his belief that all men are created equal and should be judged by their character not the color of their skin.
Let’s just cut to the chase and say everyone has to be realistic as to what is expected from another person. I said yesterday with a bit of a grammatical error “you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” You can dream everyone will be another Einstein from your efforts, but we all forget probably 95% of what we learned at one time in terms of actual facts at least. We are more likely to remember our feelings about it than the factual content as time passes unless our life or career requires some repetitive use of that… Read more »
“common sense possibilities”
What a hoot!
The level of “common sense” you defend would allow someone to conclude that the earth’s flat, and when the sun rises in the West tomorrow morning we’ll all wake up to find pink unicorns and fairies gamboling on our dewey lawns.
Folks who believe as you do can take pride in Illinois’ pestilential bankruptcy of finances and governance. Good work, sport.
How the left has changed over the years! One of my law school professors was the head of the national Democratic Party for a time. In his first class, he brought up a study conducted at BYU – a place he openly admitted he had little in common with – which explained that the most important factor in academic success is class attendance.The study was exhaustive. Not SAT’s, not LSAT’s, not prior GPA – but going to class. It was a smart move – he indicated that he would not track attendance, but that the cause and effect of class… Read more »
The goal isn’t help students. The goal is socialism: the hard working are sharing their grades with the less fortunate! There can’t be any better example to redpill otherwise liberal students!
Should I suppose, then, that you think this particular Kool-Aid drinker makes sense? “So if I am stupid, lazy, and I misbehave– and I am white– I get an F. But if I am stupid, lazy and violent and black– I get an A. Sounds like a truly racist grading system to me.” To me that’s a bat-shit crazy set of presumed assumptions and likely taken by a person having not the faintest idea of any positive concepts involved in creating the matter at hand.
James – rather than attack a hypothetical, what do you think of the policy? Those of us who didn’t major in education find it difficult to comprehend what exactly is being taught. Can you provide substantive and meaningful comment on Oak Park’s policy? Please advise.
Ask the people who created it to explain the benefits they attach to it. I didn’t do that, but I’m generously assuming they have good reasons of their own for doing so. To ascribe negative consequences seems an unwise point of view without first having knowledge as to what the goals are for this policy.
YES, the check is in the mail and we are from the government and here to help.
It is sad and disappointing to see what our citizens have done with the freedom and opportunity so many died to create and protect.
Forget truth, forget objective assessment, forget the pragmatic reality that intelligence and achievement follow some sort of normal distribution…
We are doomed as a society because we try to create artificial outcomes measured by absolutes instead of accepting reality and finding good and nobility in relative achievement.
So much for the ideals declared in the DOI and the Constitution.
The times they are a-changin’. Its probably better to get on board that bus rather than being left to die of decay in a world changing around you.
James – your response is a total cop-out. There has to be extraordinary reasons to support policies based on race – both legally and ethically. And didn’t ask you to ascribe negative consequences – only to provide input from your expertise as an education. Again I cannot foresee the salutary impact behind the policy, but someone in the education industry likely could.
All I can say here is that the general expectation for teachers in the recent few decades is that teachers shall not discriminate among students racially and consider all in equal terms as to how they are treated as well as their progress expectations when assigning grades. If that is to be changed by law or even district policy I see that as an invitation to creating trouble in the classroom and the community it serves through a sense racial discrimination.
I’ll take another tack on trying to to give a more satisfying answer. Apparently one concept here is to remove grading practices which discrimate based upon behavioral differences where that seems to apply more often to students of a particular race, maybe preferring to grade solely on test performances. Adults can see the sense of it likely more than can responsible children in particular who seem to literally expect that classroom behavior, participation, high homework completion rates and timely submission all should be considered in course grade determinations along with test grade performances. Many adults may agree. But, there is… Read more »
Way to keep a level head James. So many on here love to exaggerate and they don’t even bother to uncover the facts. I love all the downvotes you received. Truly a nice gauge to the level of ignorance from so many on this site.
To me downvotes are noting more than a lazy response from someone whose mind is highly resistant to change. There are numerous ways you can interpret almost any action or idea. Its better to have an open mind and consider the various ways of looking at it that you may not have already considered.
Keep counting that government cheese and protecting the comrades in arms!
Are you counting on “graduates” who can’t read to pay your pension in future? Oh no wait- your plan is to tax all the private school graduates who actually work to the point of 100% expropriation.
Only in the liberal mind is the most explicit form of racism not racism.
Someone please sue this district back into the Stone Age.
So does this mean that Asians and whites with higher test scores get lower grades? What an insane idea. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Teachers, what do you think of this plan?
This plan is simply not true! I am still astonished at the number of people who read one article and deem it as true. We all need to be “informed citizens” before voicing our opinions or concerns on any type of policy! Research or go directly to the source to get the facts BEFORE spewing ridiculous & false info!
And a once excellent public school goes right down the woke toilet
What a great idea! A more dramatic version would eliminate attendance altogether, for everyone! Automatic ‘A’. Just do away with school, look at all the money saved too. Sounds like something Lori would propose based on life experiences!
Actually that would be a great idea. The AA students that these nonsensical ideas target would be better served in a vocational or GED to work plan, their family structures, schedules, needs and situations are so vastly different than the more well heeled OPRF families that trying to make them adapt to a foreign world holds them back. These kids would better off working and making money for their families while getting a GED. Forcing them to attend a rigorous curriculum they neither want or have the ability to thrive in is abuse and sets them up for failure. But… Read more »
So … how would you identify the students who would benefit from a less rigorous curriculum and fall into your ‘GED’ track?
Testing? That’s currently frowned upon.
Race based? Clearly unfair and shouldn’t even be considered.
Prior educational achievement? 8th grade performance?
You make a valid point about the disparity between the marginalized student and the ‘more well-heeled’ (though finances aren’t an accurate predictor of a student’s resiliency and potential).
Whaddya think, Marko?
Let the student decide by not showing up or by failing repeatedly. This sh*t is easy for regular people to understand but we recognize libs have a hard time with simple concepts, it is after all a mental illness.
That’s a big part of the problem with modern education. Almost every wrongful or irresponsible act is forgiven. They soon learn by looking and listening to their fellow students who make such transgressions that there really is no reason to act responsibly. You’re probably 95-98% guaranteed of passing any course and getting a diploma anyway. Children need to learn one of life’s basic lessons: irresponsible and wrongful behaviors have bad consequences, anyone so charged ought to be held to account for it. That’s one of the primary missing ingredients in public education nearly everyone to one extent or another.
James, you’re coming over to the dark side!
Welcome!
As my parents would say periodically “as the twig is bent so grows the tree.” Parenting and a good peer group are generally EVERYTHING when it comes to children having a good value system.
I’d have to guess that one of the primary reasons for children being allowed to pass a given course or set of courses when their grades don’t clearly warrant it is that school budgets generally are so tight that any significant increase in staffing simply “breaks the bank.” Salary negotiations are hard-fought almost to the last penny in most cases such hiring extra teachers and staff to accommodate students who have to repeat courses can’t be done for budgetary reasons unless that number of students is absolutey minimal in percentage terms. So, if its as universally true as I am… Read more »