San Diego school board orders that schools stop grading based on actual work and test scores

The brain trusts who run San Diego's public schools--always eager to signal their virtue to other educators--noticed that minority students got lower grades than white students.

"WHOA!!  We can't have that!  Cuz different results are rock-solid proof that da system be raaaacist!  See??!!  It's 'systemic raaacism,' jus' like our wunnerful Democrat leaders tol' ya!"

But don't worry, citizen.  They have a fix for that: They're simply gonna…totally revamp the traditional grading system to avoid grading on actual, y'know, student learning and mastery of subject matter.  Cuz basing grades on actual performance would be raaaacist!

District officials wail that grading students based on their actual, y'know, scores is racist, and that to stop that means not requiring students to turn in assignments on time. As evidence for the urgency of these changes, the district released data showing that minority students received more Ds and Fs than white students.

Under the new system, students won't be penalized for failing to complete assignments, and teachers will give them extra chances to demonstrate mastery of subjects.  Grades will no longer reflect scores on tests and assignments.

The new approach—which is confusingly written—deliberately--still provides letter grades, but those grades will no longer be based on test scores.  Instead the socialist school board demands that grades reflect a student's "mastery of the subject."  

But as you already guessed, what they mean by mastery of the subject" is never explained.  The 40-page diktat from the board commands that grades "shall not be influenced by...factors that directly measure students' knowledge and skills in the content area."  Ah, so what does that leave?  

You guessed it:  everyone passes.  The school board has ordered that students who don't do the work for a course--or don't show up at all--will still pass.

Eliminating grades and standardized testing has become a crusade for California progressives.  For example, California's public universities have announced that they would no longer require applicants to take either the SAT or the ACT.  Progressives argued that those tests favored whites, since they claimed white parents could afford to enroll their kids in pricey prep courses.  

Certainly eliminating all requirements for university admission makes university adminishits feel great about their wonderful virtue, but at the expense of burdening universities with millions of dollars in needed remedial courses for unqualified, poorly-educated students.  But hey, that's a tiny price to pay to let liberal administrators feel better about themselves, right?

Except...studies show that minorities who've been admitted to high-end universities without really being prepared to do the work drop out at a far higher rate.  Some analysts have described this as "set up for failure."

Source.