San Francisco Schools Drop ‘Equity Grading’ — After One Day

San Francisco’s public schools dropped a new system of “equity grading,” which lowered academic standards, supposedly to help lower-income students, just one day after the idea had been presented to the public.

The San Francisco Chroniclereported:

An estimated 70 teachers in 14 high schools — about 10% of the educators in grades nine to 12 — were expected to participate in a voluntary program to align grades more closely to student learning rather than attendance, participation or other factors. Some of those factors included whether a student brings in cans for a food drive or whether their parents sign a permission slip, according to the background information provided by the district on the “Grading for Equity” initiative.
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San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan took to social media Wednesday to criticize the proposal while parents slammed the plan on Facebook, reflecting how fraught debates about academic achievement and equity have become. SFUSD recently reinstated 8th grade algebra after parent activism pushed for it and returned Lowell High School to merit-based admissions after a lawsuit and public outcry following the change to a lottery system.

The Voice of San Francisco had reported:

Without seeking approval of the San Francisco Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Maria Su plans to unveil a new Grading for Equity plan on Tuesday that will go into effect this fall at 14 high schools and cover over 10,000 students. The school district is already negotiating with an outside consultant to train teachers in August in a system that awards a passing C grade to as low as a score of 41 on a 100-point exam.

Were it not for an intrepid school board member, the drastic change in grading with implications for college admissions and career readiness would have gone unnoticed and unexplained. It is buried in a three-word phrase on the last page of a PowerPoint presentation embedded in the school board meeting’s 25-page agenda.

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Grading for Equity eliminates homework or weekly tests from being counted in a student’s final semester grade. All that matters is how the student scores on a final examination, which can be taken multiple times. Students can be late turning in an assignment or showing up to class or not showing up at all without it affecting their academic grade. Currently, a student needs a 90 for an A and at least 61 for a D. Under the San Leandro Unified School District’s grading for equity system touted by the San Francisco Unified School District and its consultant, a student with a score as low as 80 can attain an A and as low as 21 can pass with a D.

In 2022, San Francisco voters recalled three members of the school board over left-wing policies and radical indoctrination — the beginning of an ongoing backlash against the extreme left in the famously left-wing city.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.