San Diego previously had a reputation for being one of the sanest large cities in California, resisting the worst far-left lunacy infecting other parts of the state. But possibly not any more, as the San Diego Unified School District looks to go fully woke and eliminate grades for middle schoolers:
Some school districts are embracing trendy but dubious ideas about how to fight racism in the classroom.
The San Diego Unified School District, for instance, moved this fall to abolish its traditional grading system. Students will still receive letter grades, but they won’t reflect average scores on papers, quizzes, and tests. Under the new system, pupils will not be penalized for failing to complete assignments or even show up for class, and teachers will give them extra opportunities to demonstrate their “mastery” of subjects. What constitutes mastery is not quite clear, but grades “shall not be influenced by behavior or factors that directly measure students’ knowledge and skills in the content area,” according to guidance from the district.
So, without tests and graded work, what will grades be based on, then? Presumably naked favoritism and fidelity to political correctness, plus punishing students for having the “wrong” skin color. Given recent initiatives, it seems that the fondest wish of many California Democrats is to discriminate against Asians.
District officials evidently believe that the practice of grading students based on average scores is racist and that “anti-racism” demands a learning environment free of the pressure to turn in assignments on time. As evidence for the urgency of these changes, the district released data showing that minority students received more Ds and Fs than white students: Just 7 percent of whites received failing grades, compared to 23 percent of Native Americans, 23 percent of Hispanics, and 20 percent of black students.
“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” Vice President Richard Barrera told a local NBC affiliate. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”
These changes to San Diego schools’ grading system are an excellent example of a bureaucracy citing a noble-sounding goal (who could be against anti-racism?) to justify a policy that doesn’t address the issue whatsoever. After all, eliminating these kinds of grades won’t eliminate the underlying inequities that produced the disparate failure rates. It may actually cover those inequities up: Given that grades are a tool for evaluating students’ progress, the district is essentially announcing that it will no longer gather as much evidence as it could about negative social phenomena it would presumably like to fix. Better grades do not mean students will suddenly have a better grasp of the material. They certainly won’t be better prepared for college, where traditional grades are very much still a thing.
Pre-woke American education was by no means an Edenic garden pf pure learning, but everything the Social Justice Warrior cadres have inflicted on schools has made things dramatically worse.
San Diego parents should be in open revolt over SDUSD plans to destroy the lives of their children, and should start filing lawsuits, hiring tutors and looking into private schools.
Tags: California, Democrats, Richard Barrera, San Diego, San Diego Unified School District, Social Justice Warriors
Discriminating against Asians (e.g., Chinese, Japanese) is a time-honored California racist tradition. They can give the 1930’s Deep South a run for its money. All the other California demographic cohorts resent having to compete in a real meritocracy, so find a way to handicap those whose culture and work ethic surpasses their own. It’s so much easier to be resentful than it is to clean up your own act and become better more productive people.
California Asians play the role reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron character. California is the Office of the Handicappers General.
“They certainly won’t be better prepared for college, where traditional grades are very much still a thing.”
But not for long. Just saying.
“After all, eliminating these kinds of grades won’t eliminate the underlying inequities that produced the disparate failure rates.”
Yeah, it won’t turn them white or Asian. Their problem is biological and it won’t be solved by ANY government decree. Doesn’t make them bad people (though it does ensure there will be more bad people among them) but there’s a reason their homelands are in the third-world. Third-world population equals third-world nation, and parroting totalitarian, politically correct, lies like the one above won’t change that. The concept of American exceptionalism is rubbish.