Turn & Talk / "Antiracist" Grading Starts with You

 The reason behind this blog is so I can rant and rave about why American public education is in such a sorry state. It saves me from annoying my wife and from stopping strangers on the street to listen to my great, terrific, stupendous ideas for improving American education.

These days, rather than merely letting things get worse, there are people actively working to make things worse. It's as if they're working toward reducing the number of children who, upon graduating from high school, have actually gotten an education that will enable them to function in society, get a job, and be able to learn and pass on the hard lessons learned from thousands of years of human civilization. Maybe "No Child Left Behind" was an empty slogan, but now were seeing the tacit promotion of - all children left behind.

Part of that promotion is "antiracist grading." I'd never heard of it before, but after reading this article, I think some alleged experts are stretching their alleged expertise into a Bizarro world.

First, I want to challenge the assumption of your question—the term "fall behind" is a social construct. This idea of where a person should be is not a naturally occurring thing. We know from child development psychologist Jean Piaget that all people develop differently and grow at different paces.

And yet, we do know that there is a certain body of knowledge that a person needs in order to navigate life. Yes, children grow and learn at different paces, but the current Covid-related dependence on online school is slowing down the learning process for a large number of children.

Instead of the absurd focus on and twisting of grading practices, how about moving that focus to teaching children to read? While you're at it, throw in lessons on writing and spelling. If you have time after those lessons, some math couldn't hurt. When I say "math" of course, I'm referring to teaching children how to DO math; computation and all that jazz.

One thing we understand from Universal Design for Learning is that there are multiple ways a kid can express their knowing. And so if you know 2+2=4, one way you can express your knowing is by writing it. Another way you can express your knowing is by discussing it. A third way is by creating a model that shows it. A fourth way is by illustrating it and a fifth way is by performing a play. But in too many schools, only one way is considered legitimate. So if you write it, you get an A and that's it. There might be 100 kids in the school who know 2+2=4, but if only two of those kids can write it, then only two of those kids will receive As. That is profoundly discriminatory.

Maybe I'm taking this argument too literally, but being able to express an idea succinctly so that others can understand it would signal that a student understands the concept. In the case of math, to me, that means being able to do the math. If you can write a play showing that 2+2=4, you can certainly figure out the equation.

The second thing I would eliminate is the ideology of transactional gratitude. In most academic spaces, there is a silent pact that teachers make with students: I will agree to teach you well if you demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it. And if you do not demonstrate to me that you are thankful for it, I will withhold quality teaching from you.

This is just insulting to every hard-working teacher who tries to reach every student in spite of all of the roadblocks set up against proper teaching. "Antiracist grading" seems to me to be one more roadblock. 

Hey, Black Lives Matter: Do You Really Want China to Run the World?

 This is by David P. Goldman at PJ Media. It's from June 22 of this year, but it's still relevant. 

China is a ruthless meritocracy. Ten million high-school students take the gaokao (college entrance exam) each year, with math questions a lot tougher than our Graduate Record Examination. The average Chinese family spends the equivalent of a year’s income on tutoring. A third of Chinese undergraduates major in engineering, and China graduates six times as many STEM BAs as the U.S. each year–more than the U.S., Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Europe combined. A lot of their teachers hold doctorates from top U.S. universities, where we trained up a world-class faculty for Chinese universities (which now rank among the world’s best in STEM according to all the Western ratings).

Meanwhile, the University of California is “phasing out” standardized exam (SAT and ACT) scores as a criterion for admission, in order to build a Potemkin village of equality. China is building up its universities and we are destroying ours. Who do you think will run the world a couple of decades from now?

China is the most racist country in the world. It put between one and two million members of the Turkic Muslim Uyghur minority through “re-education camps” in its Western Xinjiang province to crush resistance to cultural absorption. Every Chinese I have spoken with about this, from government officials to office workers, says matter-of-factly, “We’re going to kill them all.” That is how China has been handling “unruly barbarians” for thousands of years. 

Somehow personal achievement has become something that is frowned upon in this country. Our children are the ones who will suffer because of that mindset.

The soft bigotry of anti-racist expectations, by Ian Rowe

 Yes, black kids can achieve and meet expectation in public schools. They can do as well as white kids (not that white kids are doing that great either) and Asian kids. But not if we hold them to lower expectations in the name of "antiracism." 

Despite these facts, school districts across the country are adopting the narrative that racial disparities in academic outcomes pose today’s greatest educational challenge. Such tunnel vision towards problems is usually accompanied by an equally narrow vision towards causality. These educators are reinforcing the flawed belief that every racial disparity must be due to white supremacy and systemic racism, regardless of other factors like declines in stable families or lack of school choice, which may play a far more powerful role in impeding the development of children of all races. The resulting “anti-racist” policies are becoming the unintended, modern day version of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I taught in a district where requirements were slowly lowered over the years until they were meaningless. When I left, students were allowed to turn in any assignment for full credit up until the last week of the term. Parents repeatedly asked for lists and new copies of those missing assignments, which were usually still not turned in. We were not allowed to give zeros on assignments that weren't turned in. Students had to be given 50%. And of course, nobody was allowed to be retained even at a parent's request, because the research says . . . 

Racism is not the cause of current disparities. For more information on that subject, I strongly recommend Thomas Sowell's book "Discrimination and Disparities."

And as Ben Shapiro once said on a related subject:

San Diego Unified Holds ‘White Privilege’ Training Sessions For Teachers

 Don't expect American public education to improve. Here is another reason why the majority of American public school students will continue to graduate with little or no reading, writing, math, or critical thinking skills.

On Thursday, an exclusive report on leaked documents revealed that the San Diego Unified School District was holding training sessions where teachers were told of their “white privilege,” that they were racist, and they were part of an oppressive white power structure. Not only are the teachers told that they must acknowledge their “privilege” and embrace “antiracist” ideas, they are instructed to “teach others to see their privilege.”

Christopher Rufo of City Journal reported what he had discovered in the leaked documents. “SCOOP: San Diego Unified School District is forcing teachers to attend ‘white privilege’ training, in which teachers are told ‘you are racist’ and ‘you are upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.’ The leaked documents from the training session will shock you,” Rufo wrote in a series of posts.

Teachers can't teach if they aren't being trained to teach. Unless things change radically, look for the next generation to be even less skilled than current graduates. Next, students will learn how to humiliate their teachers - instead of learning useful skills.

Read the whole article and weep for what will be coming next.