Grading for Equity: Reflection Questions (Ch 2)

As part of a summer professional reading group, some colleagues and I elected to read Grading for Equity, by Joe Feldman. It's a big topic, so I wanted an excuse to do some reflective writing on it, so I can try to understand it more deeply. Fortunately, Feldman wrote some "Questions to Consider" at the end of each chapter, and so I hope to use those to guide regular reflections.

Chapter 2: A Brief History of Grading

Initial Reactions. It definitely feels like most teachers I run into these days are all pretty understanding of the ways that schools have been slow to change, despite society changing at a breakneck pace. Industrial Revolution, preparing factory workers, and so on. But as society changes, our schools should change to fit what society needs them to be.  Like, yes, they should be a reflection of the wants and needs of the hosting community. But this makes it seems like schools kind of...lag...behind society's demands, responding, but ultimately reactionary.

But I also think there is a ton of opportunity for them to be seen as "laboratories."To a certain extent, schools should be able to exist in a bubble that is at least partly independent of society. A sacred space where people (both children and adults) are invited, encouraged, and supported in really taking big risks, and trying out radical ideas and practices, in the name of fostering innovation, insight, and joy. In this way, schools can be the sector of society partly responsible for leading societal progress, instead of lagging behind.

On Dewey. This chapter really presented two theories of development for why schools in the U.S. developed in the way they did. Of course, there was the Industrial Revolution motivating a factory model of education. But he also talked about the role that John Dewey played in articulating a different vision. I won't say that Dewey was the only person at that time advancing a philosophy of education at the societal level, but he was the only one I know of that the white-supremacist capitalist cisheteropatriarchy would platform at that time.

Dewey's idea that schools were essentially places for young people to learn how to participate in democracy was noble in a way that the factory model wasn't. So people loved it. But creating a school system that reflects those values would not be idea for Industry (read, Capitalism and white supremacy). So Feldman talked about how leaders would present that noble vision superficially, use it to build support, but then still design a school that serviced Industry over all--a classic "bait-and-switch." And they're still doing that today.

Leaders love to say that "kids are the future," but you know what would happen if we actually, honestly, and vigorously supported making schools the true "incubators of democracy" that Dewey was envisioning? With true democracy flourishing, white supremacy, capitalism, the cisheteropatriacrchy, and all the other oppressive backbones of American society would would crumble...because it doesn't take much for the vast majority of people to see and feel that these institutions are terrible.

So in defense of itself, schools are throttled back. Resources are constrained. Visioning is only honored at the "top," where the sociopolitical leadership can ensure that the vision for what schools can be never far exceeds what our oppressors are comfortable with. Grades (and associated statistics), are the "economy" of schools, and by placing top-down pressures on how that economy functions, the leaders of industry and government (at all levels) have us by the throat.

Questions to Consider

1) How do schools in the first half of the twenty-first century--their design, their purpose, their student--compare to schools in the first half of the twentieth century?

• This is a pretty boring question, so I won't say too much? (Sorry, lol.) But the biggest thing I'm thinking of is how we are still weirdly reverent of what "industry" says what young people should be doing in school. While I kind of appreciate the spirit of "21st Century Skills," I think there are more important reasons than "the job market" for young people to learn how to be "problem solvers" and "communicators." I wonder if we surveyed all the *real* community leaders (not just capitalists), the organizers, revolutionaries...what would they say our young people need to learn?

2) How do you see the ideas and beliefs of the early twentieth century manifesting themselves through your school's communications, curriculum, instruction, policies, and grading?

• I am so very grateful that my school is working to be competency-based in their grading. I say "working to be" because it's still a pretty young school, trying to be innovative in a context that makes it tough. Our district has nowhere near enough capacity to give us everything we need to execute this vision of being "competency-based" to the extent that it deserves. And at the end of the year, we still have to submit something that looks like a traditional 0-100 grade, we still have to play the game of "credits" and "graduation requirements," all of which are mechanisms that make it hard for us to be truly radical.
• I'm still new to my school (this will be my 2nd year), so I can't speak too much about the school as a whole. But I can see a lot of ways that my own grading adheres to the oppressive factory model. Much of my grades are largely a function of student "productivity" and "compliance." There are a lot of abstract numerical ratings, and averages. Students put the work and participation they produce into some "black box" that is me, my assessment process, and my school/district's grading system, and out comes their payment in the form of a numerical grade.