THE SRV EXPOSITOR
"The past and the present are within my field of inquiry." — Sherlock Holmes,
in The Hound of the Baskervilles
"GRADING FOR EQUITY"
SRVUSD data for CAASPP testing shows worrisome performance drops, especially in SRVUSD's middle schools and high schools (where ideological intrusions are most intense), and particularly in mathematics. See the individual school data, below the District summary. Data below shows pre-COVID lockdown 2018-19 and post-COVID lockdown 2021-22.
SRVUSD Data, CAASPP, Individual Schools
Note: SRVUSD average math-testing drop-off was 5.46 percentage points (i.e., from 77.51% to 72.05% "Met or Exceeded Standard for Math). But some schools' performance was far worse. Among the worst: SRVUSD Middle Schools and San Ramon Valley High School.
Charlotte Wood Middle School dropped 14 points; Stone Valley Middle School dropped 12 points; SRVHS also dropped 12.
California High School was low to begin with, and dropped even lower.
Another Problem
Unfortunately, the CAASPP testing-program individual and group reports provide only qualitative and very generalized descriptions of knowledge and skills — e.g., "Sandra demonstrates some ability to solve well-posed mathematics problems by adapting his or her [????] knowledge of problem-solving skills and strategies. Sandra also demonstrates some ability to analyze real-world problems, and can build and use mathematical models to interpret and solve problems." How does that help anyone?
Taking samples of the computer-based CAASPP tests demonstrates that much greater (and more useful) specificity could be provided if wished by California's educationist powers that be — e.g., "Sandra is able to solve quadratic equations. Sandra understands the slope-intercept form for linear equations and can graph such equations. Sandra is unable to apply basic trigonometric ratios (sine, cosine, tangent) to find missing side lengths in right triangles. Sandra successfully solves most word problems by converting their wording to algebraic equations and solving those."
These would still be qualitative reports on knowledge/skills. But they would provide helpful specifics.
Information on class groups as a whole could also be reported in these ways, so as to assess group strengths and weaknesses, pointing to a need for specific remediation/catch-ups.
The same problems exist for "English and Language Arts" (ELA) CAASPP tests. They could provide results like these: "Sandra uniformly writes sentences with correct subject/verb agreement. Sandra understands and uses correct cases for nouns and pronouns (e.g. nominative, accusative/objective/dative, possessive/genitive). Sandra's vocabulary is superior to her grade-level expectations. Sandra assigns capital letters appropriately. Sandra makes some mistakes in punctuation, and needs better to understand the use of semicolons in particular...." But they don't.
True to form, Charlotte Wood and Stone Valley are already on the leading edge of SRVUSD's own related "Grading for Equity" rollout. They've initiated a grading scheme introduced by a Stone Valley Middle School teacher who herself has eliminated Ds. She reports online to her NEA/CTA/SRVEA comrades that "Students can now turn in assignments late and redo work."
This "Grading for Equity" scheme was introduced in more general terms at SRVUSD's "Equity Summer Institute" in July 2022, in a presentation which included the following slides. Once again, the allegedly "white supremacist society," "white privilege," and "implicit bias" are the motivating factors for SRVUSD's overtly racist "anti-racism" programs. So SRVUSD continues turning over its curriculum, and now its grading, to balkanizing racial activists (and reverse racists).
Notice: the radical activists who composed these slides believe as "fundamental truths about grading" that "You gotta break some eggs to make some omelettes" and that "Fair isn't equal." Grades are now another mechanism for "Equity."
In 2020, Newsweek Magazine carried the story of what many or most considered the insanely demeaning posting by the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), implicitly criticizing what it called "Aspects and Assumptions of White Culture in the United States." The Museum quickly found it necessary/advisable to take down its shameful posting, itself overtly racist, after ridicule and condemnation came in from all sides.
Most people, at least those with common sense and decency — and of whatever skin color — recognize the values and behaviors shown in the NMAAHC posting on "WHITENESS" (copy below) as generally beneficial to individuals, families, and the culture at large.
Keeping in mind that genuine racism involves an assumption or expectation of better or worse behavior/performance of someone based merely on that someone's skin color or ethnicity: we can see echoes of the subversively counterproductive chart below in the implicit presumptions of the "Grading for Equity" movement — and in such curricula as SRVUSD's own Critical Race Theory lessons (though SRVUSD dodges that term).
The key to better academic performance is well-prepared and dedicated teachers who make education truly a profession, not a unionized job devoted to indoctrinating students with the latest politically correct fads and fashions. High expectations of students generate remarkable results with students of whatever background, as education heroes Marva Collins and Jaime Escalante have shown.
We're 40 years past the "Nation at Risk" report on educational performance, and yet we're still getting the same results — or worse — which provoked alarm in 1983. Genuine school choice, wherein tax dollars follow students to the schools they and their parents choose, would solve much or most of today's even worse academic performance problem.