For the most part, the Chicago Public Schools’ proposed new grading policy strikes us as fair and sensible.
Like some other school districts across the country, CPS is adopting a “pass/incomplete” grading system that does not penalize students if their academic performance falls short during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given the significant shortcomings of remote learning, no one can argue against that. Fairness demands that the district give a break to the 355,000 Chicago students whose schooling has suffered a huge blow because of tough circumstances outside their control.
But there’s a big flaw that works against the 13,000 students who still don’t have access to technology. It’s up to the adults — in this case, CPS and the Chicago Teachers Union — to fix it.
Here’s how the new policy, still to be voted on by the Board of Education, is to work:
Say you’re a student who has earned A’s up to this point in the year, but you’re facing a difficult family situation during this crisis and haven’t completed most of your online assignments or hard-copy lesson packets. Maybe your grade during this final quarter would have been a D and lowered your final grade for the year.
That won’t happen now. Even a student who would normally receive a final F will get an “incomplete” and be able to make up work down the road.
The policy also eliminates retention for elementary students. Students who would typically be held will get an “incomplete” and be first in line to attend summer school if the district offers it this year.
In addition, high school students will have some promotion and graduation requirements, like service learning, waived because of the pandemic.
Raising grades
CPS made a big mistake, though, in not ensuring that every kid who’s willing to do the work has the same chance to raise their final grade. Only those students who complete work online will have that chance.
That’s simply not fair. It hurts those students who were failing before school shut down or need to recover credits to graduate, but who don’t have a computer or WiFi to complete work online.
CPS has cited the difficulty of getting hard-copy lesson packets to teachers for grading in a timely manner. If that’s a problem, it’s up to the Chicago Teachers Union to solve it by urging teachers to, say, pick up lesson packets once or twice a week at school.
The adults have to make it work — for kids’ sake.
Send letters to letters@suntimes.com.
