Summary of Joe Feldman's Grading for Equity

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 Mallory, the principal of a new charter school in California, noticed that the students were not achieving the same success in their classes, regardless of which teacher they had. She realized that the teachers were not aligned with what and how they were teaching, and that by all accounts, the performance of students should be comparable across teachers of the same course.

#2 Mallory was a teacher in a school that had three different math teachers. She found that the students in the classes with the lowest and highest rates of D and F grades received similar standardized test scores, and that the classes with the lowest and highest rates of absences were also the ones with the lowest and highest rates of D and F grades.

#3 Some teachers had only three categories of assignments: Tests, Classwork, and Homework. Others had more subjective categories, such as Citizenship, Participation, and Effort. The school had spent months planning and coordinating to ensure that teachers were using sequenced curriculum, but their different approaches to grading was undermining all of it.

#4 When Mallory began to discuss grades with her teachers, she was shocked to learn that they varied by teacher in every school. She wondered if this was an unavoidable part of schools, like the annoying bells between classes, the complaints about cafeteria food, and the awkward physical education outfits.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822532281

IRB Media

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Insights on Joe Feldman's Grading for Equity

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Mallory, the principal of a new charter school in California, noticed that the students were not achieving the same success in their classes, regardless of which teacher they had. She realized that the teachers were not aligned with what and how they were teaching, and that by all accounts, the performance of students should be comparable across teachers of the same course.

#2

Mallory was a teacher in a school that had three different math teachers. She found that the students in the classes with the lowest and highest rates of D and F grades received similar standardized test scores, and that the classes with the lowest and highest rates of absences were also the ones with the lowest and highest rates of D and F grades.

#3

Some teachers had only three categories of assignments: Tests, Classwork, and Homework. Others had more subjective categories, such as Citizenship, Participation, and Effort. The school had spent months planning and coordinating to ensure that teachers were using sequenced curriculum, but their different approaches to grading was undermining all of it.

#4

When Mallory began to discuss grades with her teachers, she was shocked to learn that they varied by teacher in every school. She wondered if this was an unavoidable part of schools, like the annoying bells between classes, the complaints about cafeteria food, and the awkward physical education outfits.

#5

Grading is a very important part of schools, and it is used for many different purposes by different teachers. It is used to communicate the achievement status of students to parents and guardians, as well as to select, identify, or group students for certain educational paths or programs.

#6

I learned that many of our grading practices are flawed. We often evaluate students on criteria that are nonacademic and highly susceptible to bias. We also create collateral consequences that contradict our intentions.

#7

I had to understand how teachers could learn, understand, and then implement improved grading. I had to not just touch but embrace the third rail of grading; I had to get others to embrace it with me.

#8

I had to work hard to change the beliefs of teachers, who were constantly met with arguments about the current grading system being the best. I eventually found some teachers who were willing to try out different grading practices, and their results were surprising.

#9

The percentage of Ds and Fs given by the teachers at the high school decreased by over one-quarter, from 23 percent in 2015 to 17 percent in 2016.

#10

Free and Reduced Price Lunch is a proxy for low-income students, and the percentage of Ds and Fs assigned to these students decreased from 27 percent to 19 percent. The rate of Ds and Fs decreased more sharply for low-income students, meaning that the school reduced their D and F achievement gap by 8 percent.

#11

When teachers were given more equitable grading practices, the disparity in the percent of As assigned to students who qualified for free or reduced price lunch compared to the percent of As assigned to students who did not qualify for free or reduced price lunch decreased by over one-third.

#12

The