A report from Defending Education on Wednesday found 39 school districts across seven states have paid consultants more than $8,000,000 over the past decade for equitable grading professional development.
Defending Education is an organization identifying as a grassroots, nonpartisan nonprofit which “fights to restore schools at all levels from activists imposing harmful agendas,” according to its website.
The report found 39 school districts, most of which are in California, contracted consultants to implement equitable grading practices. Other states include Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Ohio.
Most of these contracts are reportedly with the Crescendo Education Group, founded in 2014 “to equip teachers with the knowledge and practices to be more fair, consistent, and motivating,” according to its website.
The contracts listed in the report range between as little as $5,000 per year for one district to over $2,000,000 per year for another district. Most payments have been in the tens of thousands, while a few districts were paying in the hundreds of thousands, the report found.
The highest contract was with Modesto City Schools, which paid $2,025,000 to Creative Leadership Solutions in 2023, according to the report Along with a couple other contracts, including one of $1,792,000, Modesto City Schools reportedly accounts for nearly half of the national figure spent on equitable learning consulting.
According to the report, $4,561,450 of federal money was spent on equitable learning consulting, although more than 85% of this went to Modesto City Schools.
Crescendo defines equitable grading as “research-based practice of reporting only a student’s understanding of the course content.” Defending Education says on its website the subject “incorporates ‘accuracy’ (a misleading term), ‘bias-resistance’ and ‘motivation,’ all of which arguably, supplant measurable outcomes and subject mastery under the guise of ‘equity.’”
Defending Education also argues equitable grading rubrics can allow students who miss classes, miss deadlines and receive poor grades to potentially end up with a final grade similar to a classmate who is on time and scores well if the teacher takes into account “bias” and “motivation.”
In contrast, Crescendo claims on its website equitable grading “increases academic expectations and rigor because it focuses students, and their teachers, entirely on learning and mastering course content.”
In academia, the jury is seemingly still out on equitable grading, with back and forths on the subject common between professors and researchers.
Critics, including Meredith Coffey with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, argue equitable grading decreases the value of good grades, is unrealistically optimistic and is ungrounded in the reality of classroom teaching.
Advocates, primarily longtime teacher and Crescendo CEO Joe Feldman, argue equitable grading decreases grade inflation and increases student motivation. Feldman also authored Grading for Equity.
Off The Press reached out to Modesto City Schools for comment but did not receive a response. This article will be updated if a response is received.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Kristina Watrobski
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.offthepress.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
