Name: Is failure an option? Bay Area school districts debate student grading during coronavirus closures
Brand: sfchronicle.com
SKU: sfchronicle-com-50
Availability: OnlineOnly

critic

Is failure an option? Bay Area school districts debate student grading during coronavirus closures

preview

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateIt’s a conundrum all schools are facing during the coronavirus closures: How do you hold students accountable for academic work while also ensuring they aren’t punished on their report cards for circumstances beyond their control?District officials across the Bay Area and state have responded to that concern with a range of grading systems, with many opting for pass/fail or credit/no credit.Teachers want to reward students who continue to work hard.Yet the idea of failing any student this semester raises legal and ethical questions, officials say. What if a student is homeless or has other issues restricting access to schoolwork? How can they flunk if they couldn’t go to online classes or complete assignments?They can’t, Los Angeles Unified officials decided, opting to retain letter grades for middle and high school students, but eliminating the possibility of an F, or failing grade. The lowest grade for this semester will be a D.In San Francisco, the school board took that idea further, proposing to give all students straight A’s. A final vote on that is pending.Other districts, including Fremont Unified, still haven’t decided.“Everyone is looking for a solution that meets everyone’s needs, which is hard to do,” said Todd Whitmire, principal of Pittsburg High School, which adopted a credit/no credit policy. “The students are still expected to participate and attempt to complete their assignments.”That said, the quality of instruction varies greatly as teachers adjust to a distance-learning model, with some easily adapted to giving live video lessons or recording lectures on YouTube, and others sending emails with assignments, he said.Whitmire said that his district, like many others, has suspended teacher evaluations because it wouldn’t be fair to judge educators given the extreme circumstances. How then, do they judge kids?There are some students whom teachers can’t locate, who haven’t checked in and who aren’t participating. Some have gotten jobs to support their families. Some have difficult family lives.“I don’t want to see a kid fail because he lives in a two-bedroom apartment with 15 family members,” the principal said.At the same time, it’s important to maintain high expectations of students, to show them their effort and learning matters, even in a crisis, educators say. Keeping the bar high provides stability and normalcy for them, they argue.San Francisco teacher Clarity Burke said she would quit rather than give all her students at John O’Connell High School an A, a proposal the school board is expected to vote on later this month.Coronavirus Coverage“Giving everyone an A erases the achievements of our students and increases bias against students of color, who are already accused of not earning their A’s or college acceptance or tech jobs because of affirmative action and grade inflation,” she said. “Giving everyone an A erases the last extrinsic motivator we have to keep our most vulnerable kids engaged in academic learning, and it gives families who want or need to exploit the labor of their children a perfect excuse to pull their kids onto the streets or into a job.”It’s unclear how universal straight A’s would impact college applications or acceptances for this fall.California’s state university systems have relaxed requirements for spring semester transcripts, saying letter grades, pass/fail or credit/no credit would be acceptable.The grades, however they appear, will not be calculated into a student’s grade point average.Following that guidance, officials for the Acalanes Union High School District in Contra Costa County adopted a credit/no credit model for the semester.Will Cautero, an English teacher at Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek, said everyone is adjusting to online learning, making teaching and grading difficult.“I just want them to engage in literature,” he said. “We’re here for them and having that exchange is important.”But it’s not the same as the classroom, where teachers can see students, connect with them and assess their effort and understanding.Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.“It’s a learning curve,” he said of teaching from home. “And it’s not ideal.”Given the lack of teacher preparation for distance learning and lack of resources among many students, there’s just little validity in any grading system right now, said Akilah Lyons-Moore, assistant professor in education at the University of Southern California.“It’s just very complicated,” she said. “I do think it’s a balancing act.”Some districts have set guidelines on failing students, limiting it to those who were already failing before schools closed and who did not engage in learning that they could have during the closure.Yet not all students like the idea of an automatic A or no-fail policy.If students are guaranteed to pass their classes, they won’t have a reason to continue turning in assignments or participating in online classes, said Jett Sandoval, a student at San Francisco’s Lowell High School.If there’s no way to fail, “a lot of students will just drop distance learning,” he said.Yet failing students could create other challenges — including potential lawsuits, said John Affeldt, managing attorney at Public Advocates, which focuses on educational equity.“I don’t think a district can legally fail a student whom the district hasn’t first taken the steps to ensure is connected and supported for distance learning,” he said.That said, disadvantaged students face hardship and lack access to technology or resources to learn when schools are open, said David Bloomfield, professor of Education Leadership, Law and Policy at Brooklyn College.“A student who lacks internet service or otherwise found it impossible to attend school might reasonably, if unfairly, be held back if they were unable to complete their grade level,” he said. “Unless the unequal access was systematically based on some invidious classification like race, I doubt a pass/fail policy that fell mostly on low income students would be illegal.”Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: Twitter:Tracking COVID-19 cases across the Bay Area and California.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigateIt’s a conundrum all schools are facing during the coronavirus closures: How do you hold students accountable for academic work while also ensuring they aren’t punished on their report cards for circumstances beyond their control?District officials across the Bay Area and state have responded to that concern with a range of grading systems, with many opting for pass/fail or credit/no credit.Teachers want to reward students who continue to work hard.Yet the idea of failing any student this semester raises legal and ethical...

public

Jill Tucker knows the rules of tether ball and sort of gets why one might need to solve for X and so she is the k-12 education writer at the SF Chronicle.

Jill Tucker

Delivering the Bay Area’s best journalism every day. Subscribe and support the newsroom: http://SFChronicle.com/subscribe

Is failure an option? Bay Area school districts debate student grading during coronavirus closures

No article scores yet.

CRITIC REVIEWS

PUBLIC REVIEWS