Another week, another disastrous San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) educational outcome for students and families. 

SDUSD Board of Education Trustee Richard “Tricky Dick” Barrera is caught lying AGAIN, the SDUSD STILL has no phase 1, 2, 3 or other School Reopening Plan and despite having a majority of Hispanic Students in the racist SDUSD. there was no mention of Hispanic Heritage Month that ended on October 15th on the STILL botched SDUSD website “facelift” gone horribly wrong.  The total leadership incompetence, inexperience and corruption of Superintendent Marten, Trustee Tricky Dick Barrera and Trustee Whitehurst Payne continues.

This Sunday Reads highlights an article giving great background on the ill-advised Standards Based Grading initiative launched with ZERO community input.

Provided below is an article from a national news organization with the most SDUSD relevant excerpts from that article highlighted.  We urge our readers to click on the title and read the full article for themselves.

BE WELL…TAKE COVID 19 PRECAUTIONS!

Five Problems With Standards-Based Grading

QUOTES FROM ARTICLE:

Standards-based Grading (SBG) is the solution to a problem that most parents and teachers never knew they had.  It is a solution to a problem the educational-technology companies have created. Ed tech wants to know: How do we make children learn “stuff” and evaluate exactly what they have learned and predict what they are able to learn in the future?  

SBG is helping to turn the art of teaching into a science.  In the process, it’s getting so education is no longer inherently valuable, a benefit for each, individual child, but rather just a data point for outcomes and predictability.  

SBG turns your child into nothing more than a widget.

And…

1. SBG Limits Education

SBG completely removes the incentive for teaching anything other than those standards that are graded.  “That which is measured, improves” is seen in stark and concerning reality with SBG.  

When teachers had the autonomy to decide what and how they would teach certain subjects, there was a phenomenal, widely varied range of things that were taught throughout this country. 

And…

If a teacher has a great passion and presentation for the Holocaust or the Civil War, for example, he can enrich his students’ understanding and love for learning by sharing it with them. But with SBG in place, an enriching detour that doesn’t fit into the standards goes unaccounted for in the grading structure because it doesn’t recognize teaching more than what’s in the standards. Instead of supporting education as a broadening of experiences, it will ensure that each student is taught no more and no less than every other student.  

The question then is, what will be lost?

And…

2. SBG Facilitates Data-mining

SBG allows for data gathering on children to be linked directly to the standards. During the 2012 Datapalooza, the CEO of Knewton, Jose Ferreira, talked about his company’s software being able to predict a child’s grade – as long as teachers were consistent graders. SBG is the solution to that irksome old problem of unpredictability!  

The bottom line is: SBG is the next level of data mining on our kids. You don’t have to compare end of year assessments across schools or states. SBG can be linked nicely to ed tech programs that will pump out a 1-4 grade per standard, presented in real time.  Johnny’s parents may someday know that he is ranked 111,114 in the nation in math,and then, be able to predict whether or not he’ll be accepted to Stanford at the age of 8. Talk about a brave new world of potential-limiting prophecy!

And…

3. SBG Is Overwhelming

Parents and teachers hate SBG because the sheer volume of grades is overwhelming. 

Rather than getting an A in English and a B in math, a child receives a grade of 1-4 (or similar) for every single standard in English and the same for math, etc. Looking at one grade level for a rough measure we find there are roughly 80 English/Language Arts standards alone! 

The argument is made by proponents of SBG that then parents will know if their kid knows quadratic equations but doesn’t understand exponential equations.  But parents will have to be able to decipher the jargon used in the standards.  For example: Use tiling to show in a concrete case that the area of a rectangle with whole-number side lengths a and b + c is the sum of a × b and a × c. Use area models to represent the distributive property in mathematical reasoning.(CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.7.C)  

Now, how many people can understand that?

In the case of the frustration and burden placed on teachers, they often must show evidence of each student’s mastery of each concept.  And if a test question covers three standards and another question covers two different standards, then they have to track all of that information for every student in their class.  25 math standards times 25 students times 10 tests….  Well, you get the picture.  

Of course, the ed tech companies are poised and ready to solve that problem! Teachers, just turn your teaching over to the ed tech companies! They can provide you – for a few taxpayers’ dollars – with nice computer-based programs that even produce gradebook reports to track all of the standards, with each student’s proficiency included.  Phew!  Now teachers won’t have to teach anything above and beyond the basic common standards. Where would be the motivation to do so?

And…

4. SBG Limits Students’ Desires to Achieve

Proponents of SBG claim it will incentivize students to try harder and put them in charge of their education.  The reality is that in many situations, parents are finding their students less inclined to try past the “proficiency,” or level 3, mark.  

Some of this comes from no one defining what it takes to go “beyond” proficiency.  If a student writes a decent research paper that meets all the expectations, she gets a 3, a proficient score. But trying to relate the SBG grading with A-F grading usually equates a 3 as a ‘B’.  So, what does it take to get an ‘A’? Often no one knows, because, again, we are only measuring the standards.  SBG doesn’t define what it means to go “higher” than the standard.  

When students are unsure, they stop trying.  And if you tell them they’ve met expectations, well, why should they go any further?  Even worse, when something is actually defined as “exceeding expectations.” the requirement is set so high that the pay-off for going above and beyond just isn’t there.  Students are learning to do just enough but no more.

And…

5. SBG Will Remove Societal Knowledge

The worst part of the adoption of SBG for society as a whole is the loss of knowledge which it will facilitate over time. In the course of a single generation, we could very well lose knowledge of anything that isn’t contained in the standards. How do we teach future generations what we, ourselves, do not know?  

Currently, many states have adopted or will be adopting the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  As Fordham Foundation noted in its review of NGSS, “In reality, there is virtually no mathematics, even at the high school level, where it is essential to the learning of physics and chemistry. Rather, the standards seem to assiduously dodge the mathematical demands inherent in the subjects covered.” Using SBG for the Next Generation Science Standards, the nation’s loss could be large portions of chemistry and physics and the actual math that is associated with those two disciplines.  

And…

Are we sure Standards-based Grading is our best option?

The A-F grading system is not standardized. It leaves room for subjectivity on the part of a teacher.  But in America, standardization is rarely a virtue.  The beauty of what our Founders gave us was the freedom to be individuals. Education that limits knowledge to a discrete set of standards, applied nationally, will limit freedom. 

And…

Standards-based grading will lead us further away from freedom and individuality and could, sadly, lead to a complete loss of selected types of knowledge in America. Even worse, it could lead to generations that lack the will or desire to reach higher and to do more.

Other relevant articles:

TeachThought: Standards-Based Grading Only Solves Half The Problem

AN URBAN TEACHER’S EDUCATION: A CRITIQUE OF STANDARDS-BASED GRADING

DISTRICT DEEDS SYNOPSIS AND COMMENTARY:

We decided to post this article by “Truth in American Education” in response to the decision of the SDUSD to deploy “Standards Based Grading” (SBG) with the purpose of addressing “racial and other disparities in current grading practices”. 

The article, written in April, 2019, effectively describes five issues with SBG  from an Education, Privacy, Parent/Teacher/Student and Societal perspective.  After also reading through other articles related to SBG, including the two listed below the featured article, we decided to investigate the motivation for this SBG propaganda effort.

The BIG question is:

Why did the corrupt SDUSD Senior Leadership roll out a complicated, questionable, confusing and harmful grading system in the middle of the current SDUSD educational disaster and Covid 19 Pandemic?

We decided the best way to identify the corrupt motives of the SDUSD Supt. Marten, Trustee Tricky Dick Barrera and the rest of their senior management cronies is to look at their checkered past that includes intentional diversions, fake initiatives and outright lies.

Reviewing our District Deeds archive we found that a similar diversion was used by Marten and her cronies back in 2014.  We highlighted that scam in our 3 part series titled “Rotten to the Common Core” Part 1 – Marten, Ravitch and Duncan – OH MY!, Part 2 – Counterfeit Ruby Slippers and Part 3 – The Riddle, the Mystery, the Enigma, the Motive.

The motive at that time was the following:

“If the Common Core IS NOT clearly tied to the other ongoing initiatives and is communicated by Monarch Marten through the endless use of indecipherable edubabble buzzwords like “authentic Learning”, “appreciative lens”, “data dialogues” and “community based reform movement” (that is accentuated by repeatedly preventing any real inclusion of a large share of the Stakeholder community) there is and will be no proof that Common Core didn’t work…or that it did…or even that any part of it even existed…so how CAN Parents or Community Members participate…or object…or hold Marten and the Board accountable?”

By replacing “Common Core” with SBG, the matches were clearly evident:

edubabble buzzwords?

Check!  “Standards Based Grading” itself is edubabble. One of the excellent articles above, “A CRITIQUE OF STANDARDS-BASED GRADING” mentions that “pure SBG is to say that it is the practice of excluding from a student’s grade any form of human ability or growth that is not seen by the teacher to be related to the teacher’s content-area standards.”.  Soon there will be a Marten SBG…we dare any Teacher, Principal, Parent, Trustee or Martens’ Corrupt Crony Crew to define what that will mean in 3 years!

“preventing any real inclusion of a large share of the Stakeholder community”

Check!  The unethical Marten and Board of Education usually use an unwitting  Stakeholder community member as a proxy to vouch for the ill-advised proposed scam.  In this case they used an innocent, well meaning, never officially elected Student “Trustee” as a prop to cover up zero real inclusion of a large share of the Stakeholder community.  We ask our Readers: Could the emotional and psychological manipulation of this Student “Trustee” by Marten, Barrera and the rest be a form of Child Abuse?

“no proof that Common Core (SBG) didn’t work…or that it did…or even that any part of it even existed”

Check!  There are no standards, no plan, no impact study and no trackable data that has been identified.  There is only “draft Version”20 page “work in progress”document provided to the San Diego Union Tribune

No Data Measurements defined and long learning curve for Teachers, Parents, Students, Principals and Site/District Staff

Check!  As we have mentioned in previous posts, ALL District/School/Student performance measurement have been eliminated for the 2020/21 school year.  Per the attached articles, the learning curve for SBG is long and there is no defined performance data points.  This SBG scam will cause the delay of any significant Student Performance Data for at least 2 – 3 MORE years…and prevent any group to have real data to measure SBG impact to Student learning. Marten and her cronies get another 3 year free ride while the poorest Student and Students of color get left behind.

As proven by the Lincoln Cluster and the NAACP San Diego Chapter posts on District Deeds, corrupt Marten Crew is responsible for a long list of racist educational practices including the neglect of educational supports for the neediest Students.  

The SBG diversion/coverup seems to be a direct response to those claims by eliminating letter grades and replacing them with an unintelligible report card that cannot be deciphered accurately by anyone and hold no one, especially the Marten Crony Crew, accountable!

Here is a copy of a typical SBG Report Card from the featured article:

In addition to all the already listed, there are some basic issues that totally erode the SBG scam:

• SBG will lead to massive grade inflation and ALL Students will be ill prepared to successfully attend college or keep a job with poor skills and their worthless SDUSD High School Diploma,
• Being less strict about grading is not “combating racism”, it’s just lowering the performance bar to make the SDUSD look better.
• Lower standards to just make grades look better hide the need to spend extra money to help low income families with additional supports (tutors, mentoring, etc.)
• Changing the grading system isn’t fixing any real issues, its just making grading totally impossible to understand.
• By testing and re-testing and no deadline on assignments, Students just have more time to find someone to copy/cheat on those re-tests and assignments.

Although the racist coverup is definitely one of the motivators for Marten and Tricky Dick, there is one more motivator that is crystal clear.

The other big reason for the using the amorphous SBG as a diversion is the horrible mismanagement of the current distance learning and deeply flawed Phase 1 “in school” initiative.

Supt. Cindy Marten, her White Woman Mafia, Trustee Tricky Dick Barrera and the rest of the co-conspirator Board of Education Trustees realize that their ineffective, erratic disorganized rollout of distance learning since March 2020 has already driven THOUSANDS of Families and Students away from attending SDUSD schools.

Remember the heat put on the SDUSD by the Reopen SDUSD protesters from our Sunday Reads post on September 27, 2020: and the whole dysfunctional list we have compiled:

The “Lack of a SDUSD Reopening Plan” exposed by these Parent protesters is being added to the long list of Sandimic (SDUSD Educational Epidemic) “strategies” that negatively impact SDUSD student education:

• ZERO SDUSD 2020/21 Reopening Plan Transparency and Community Collaboration 
• ZERO Operational Budget Transparency used to hide TOTAL Operational Budget Mismanagement.
• ZERO Transparency of SDUSD performance BEFORE and DURING the Coronavirus Pandemic.
• ZERO Accountability for SDUSD LACK of performance since BEFORE and DURING the Coronavirus Pandemic.
• Phase 1 Educational Supports denied to tens of thousands of the most disadvantaged Students
• OPTIONAL Boot Camp Professional Development for Teachers – FAIL.
• Individualized “disadvantaged Student” supports with NO Equity Rules, Standards or Tracking.
• Every Cluster, School, Principal, Teacher and Student for themselves “custom” school site  “strategy” by incompetent Supt. Marten creating gross inequities  from classroom to classroom.
• Only 3 hours per day vs 5 hours per day of live teaching.
• Only 3 periods per day vs 5 periods per day of live teaching.
• No Teacher Evaluations.
• No Smarter Balanced tests in Math and English language arts.
• No California Science Test
• No Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP)
• Minimal California (ELPAC) for English learners
• Minimal California School Dashboard

And the list is being proved accurate every day!

Through a story from the Voice of San Diego (VOSD) titled “Some Schools Have No Teachers Willing to Return for ‘Phase One’ Reopening” by author Will Huntsberry  we have learned that Tricky Dick Barrera earned his nickname again by misleading stakeholders about the ridiculous “Phase 1 Rollout” blunder recently as September 29th:

For instance, school board vice president Richard Barrera previously said, “Some portion of [phase one] students will be able to come back all day, every day.”

Some portion?!? Obviously a lie by omission by Tricky Dick!

And also according to the article:

Donis Coronel is the executive director of the local principals union. She told me that in the lead-up to phase one, she talked to 25 to 30 elementary school principals.

“At least half of the principals I’ve talked to said they maybe have one teacher or zero coming back,” said Coronel. “It is an equity issue. You may have a school with 70 percent of staff returning and others with none. It’s challenging.”

Obviously the Phase 1 Plan had no planning with Principals or Teacher.

And:

District spokeswoman Maureen Magee declined to provide specific figures about how many schools are not providing services for phase one.

Obviously the Phase 1 Plan is a total blunder by the SDUSD and Propaganda Crony Magee is hiding the facts to hide their mismanagement guilt.

3 weeks after the District Deeds posting they proved District Deeds right!

• Phase 1 Educational Supports denied to tens of thousands of the most disadvantaged Students

We can now add the SBG scam to the list!

• ZERO SDUSD Standards Based Grading Plan Transparency, Accountability and Community Collaboration
• ZERO SDUSD 2020/21 Reopening Plan Transparency and Community Collaboration 
• ZERO Operational Budget Transparency used to hide TOTAL Operational Budget Mismanagement.
• ZERO Transparency of SDUSD performance BEFORE and DURING the Coronavirus Pandemic.
• ZERO Accountability for SDUSD LACK of performance since BEFORE and DURING the Coronavirus Pandemic.
• Phase 1 Educational Supports denied to tens of thousands of the most disadvantaged Students
• OPTIONAL Boot Camp Professional Development for Teachers – FAIL.
• Individualized “disadvantaged Student” supports with NO Equity Rules, Standards or Tracking.
• Every Cluster, School, Principal, Teacher and Student for themselves “custom” school site  “strategy” by incompetent Supt. Marten creating gross inequities  from classroom to classroom.
• Only 3 hours per day vs 5 hours per day of live teaching.
• Only 3 periods per day vs 5 periods per day of live teaching.
• No Teacher Evaluations.
• No Smarter Balanced tests in Math and English language arts.
• No California Science Test
• No Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP)
• Minimal California (ELPAC) for English learners
• Minimal California School Dashboard

The unethical Tricky Dick Barrera was quoted from SDUSD Media Propaganda Outlet Channel 7/39 as saying:

“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” says SDUSD Vice President Richard Barrera. “If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

District Deeds translation:

“This is part of our dishonest reckoning as a school district. If we’re actually going to try and cover up the evidence of being a racist school district, we have to confront A – F grading practices like this that expose our racism, corruption, greed and guilt.” 

And where is the opinion of Trustee Sharon Whitehurst Payne, the only African American Trustee on the SDUSD Board of Education?

MIA…Missing in Action – just as she has been for the District E community for the last 4 years!

When everything is said and done, the SDUSD launch of Standards Based Grading in the middle of this Education Disaster and Covid 19 pandemic is simple.

Now for the quote of the week:

“You can put lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig.” — Barack Obama

 

#MARTENSGOTTAGO

#BARRERASGOTTAGO

#PAYNESGOTTAGO

#EVANSGOTTAGO

#BEISERSGOTTAGO

McQUARYSGOTTAGO

__________________________________________________________

IF

• Your family has been injured by the San Diego Unified School District, go to the District Deeds Complaint Forms page to find instructions to fight for your Civil Rights!

• YOU ARE TIRED OF THE COVER UPS AND LIES BY SUPT. CINDY MARTEN…

Please Click the Link Below and sign the Petition Today and READ the COMMENTS to Support the REMOVAL of Marten by SDUSD Stakeholders!

FIRE San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten Immediately!

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