What does grading for equity mean? What is it? What does it matter to students in terms of its long-term or shot-term impact on the entirety of child education? Equity is all about grading and assessing students on what they do inside the classroom, not based on their lives outside the classroom.
Equity is also about giving every student second chances, and third chances, and more, to learn. It’s about giving every student hope. This is equity-based grading—grading in a way that is fair and transparent to students, parents, teachers, everybody. It is not a question any longer to know that students need equitable grading in every classroom in every school.
Put simply, equitable grading can take different forms, but it aims to measure how students understand the classroom material by the end of a term without penalties for behavior. This has resulted in more opportunities for students to complete tests and assignments
Concept and Importance of Grading for Equity
That definition above is what Joe Feldman draws in legible writing in his book, Grading for Equity: What is it, Why It Matters, How it Can Transform Schools and Classrooms, dissecting the concept, nature, and importance of grading and the infusion of equity in the educational scheme. Joe Feldman shows us how we can use grading to help students become the leaders of their own learning and lift the veil on how to succeed.
Also, it is an effort that is worth the while because of its value to help teachers learn to implement improved, equity-focused grading for impact.
The Book
The book no doubt is a resource that delivers the research base, tools, and courage to tackle one of the most challenging and emotionally charged conversations in today’s schools: our inconsistent grading practices and the ways they can inadvertently perpetuate the achievement and opportunity gaps among our students.
With Grading for Equity, Joe Feldman cuts to the core of the conversation, revealing how grading practices that are accurate, bias-resistant, and motivational will improve learning, minimize grade inflation, reduce failure rates, and become a lever for creating stronger teacher-student relationships and more caring classrooms. Essential reading for schoolwide and individual book study or for student advocates, Grading for Equity provides
- A critical historical backdrop, describing how our inherited system of grading was originally set up as a sorting mechanism to provide or deny opportunity, control students, and endorse a “fixed mindset” about students’ academic potential―practices that are still in place a century later
- A summary of the research on motivation and equitable teaching and learning, establishing a rock-solid foundation and a “true north” orientation toward equitable grading practices
- Specific grading practices that are more equitable, along with teacher examples, strategies to solve common hiccups and concerns, and evidence of effectiveness
- Reflection tools for facilitating individual or group engagement and understanding
As Joe writes, “Grading practices are a mirror not just for students, but for us as their teachers.” Each one of us should start by asking, “What do my grading practices say about who I am and what I believe?” Then, let’s make the choice to do things differently with Grading for Equity as a dog-eared reference.
