Grades! Oh My God, GRADES!!

I'm going to be careful, especially since I'm trying this for the first time. 

So I'm reading the L.A. Times, and there on the front page is an article on districts moving toward  "mastery" grading. The title is "Schools embrace new ways of grading" and the subhead is "Teachers say pandemic showed flaws of point system." I don't know where to start.

The article maintains that the pandemic revealed to teachers the true nature of our students' lives--as if we had been oblivious--and presto! we realized that the points system discriminates against poor kids, and most especially kids of color. To which I and any teacher worth a damn should respond: no freakin' shit. We are not oblivious. This is not an unknown unknown.

Even though the equity lens for re-examining grading practices is relatively new (thank you, Joe Feldman), the limits of a points system and the value of mastery grading (once upon a time--standards-based grading) is not the Revealed Truth brought to you by our friends at SARS-CoV-2. It's old news. Hell, I did a quick Google search and found an article in the New York Times from 1971. 

The article is by By Paul L. Montgomery (March 30, 1971) and is titled, "At John Dewey H.S., a Student Can Go at His Own Pace." In addition to students being able to go at their "own pace," students were given schedule flexibility and multiple chances to complete their work--all in a Brooklyn public school with a "side arrangement" negotiated with the union. And get this: "The grades given at John Dewey are M for mastery, MC for mastery with, condition, MI for mastery in an Independent study course and R for rete[n]tion. Those who get an MC, or who get an R ... must repeat the course, are given detailed analyses of their performance as a guide to future study by their teachers." Sound familiar?

There is a ton of other writing on this issue, but everybody I knew in the business was already familiar with it and we didn't need the pandemic to bring us to our senses. For years before I retired, I and every one of my immediate colleagues had implemented many of the features of this "new" way of grading. Everyone who carries a roster knows that you grade on the work, not the behavior, or attendance. Hell, we were all ecstatic just to get the work. And any teacher who doesn't permit re-tests or multiple attempts on a project or revisions of essays--well, their grading system isn't the equity problem. They are.

Another word on that. In his 2019 article for Phi Delta Kappan (online),"Beyond standards-based grading: Why equity must be part of grading reform," Feldman claims that "[g]rading for equity... protects grading from implicit individual biases and it counteracts the institutional biases in traditional grading." There is, it seems to me, a clear case for NOT averaging a student's performance over time (a bias some teachers, myself included, have attempted to address through variable weighting) and thus tackling that particular institutional bias. 

However, I am having trouble seeing how mastery Grading for Equity safeguards grading from the implicit biases of the teacher, who is, after all, tasked with assessing mastery. If mastery grading itself pushes teachers to confront their own implicit biases, then that of course is all to the good. However, it seems to me that this claim (found elsewhere, as well) rests primarily on the assumption that behavior is being folded into a points-based grade, an unsound approach I discussed above. The work's the thing.

Another word on that. As I've been reading through the discussion of mastery née standards-based grading, I keep wondering not about how students show mastery, but how they achieve mastery. If a student is unable to participate in the process, or if they decline to complete the intermediate steps, how will they "master the standards"? How will they learn if they don't do? Do they have to already have a command of the material before they enter? Talk about equity. 

That was fun. I know this is long, but now that I got that off my chest, let me just discuss a couple of the things that drive me absolutely batty about edumedia. Writing about teaching and schools and schooling is generally atrocious, as I'm sure you are aware. However, lots of it is atrocious in the same ways. 

The L.A. Times article for example, is subheaded "Teachers say" blah blah pandemic blah blah points system. Well, the ONLY teacher mentioned or quoted is Joshua Moreno, from Alhambra High School. Now, I don't know Mr. Moreno, but he seems to have done what many if not most of us do: He thought about his class and his interactions with his students, and he revised one of his procedures. Good Job. 

Yet, as far as I can tell, he is the only teacher saying anything in the article (except for one education professor who arrives in the twenty-ninth paragraph to offer a tepid caution). The rest of the interviews/quotes are from authors, consultants, and administrative personnel from a principal to district execs. Apparently using Mr. Moreno's conversion as a stalking horse, a celebrity endorser out front to lend credibility to the "growing trend," the article spends the rest of its inches pumping the new miracle cure. Not only is it inadequate journalism, it's misleading. Not surprising for a major media organ with an agenda. I read the L.A. Times a lot, and I follow their education reporting closely, and I must admit I am never not disappointed. I wish they were the exception.

Which brings me to my final point (applause!). Anybody who has ever worked in the Los Angeles Unified School District -- or, I'm quickly finding out and am saddened to report, almost anywhere else -- will recognize the following melody. First, the district recognizes it has a problem (in this case, too many Fs and Ds). Second, using their big brains and vast network of authors, consultants, and district inductees to the Peter principle Hall of Fame, the district concocts a solution. Third, the district dips the solution in a solution of rationalization and recrimination. Et voilà! A new star is born, ready to take its place on the reform-a-go-round. 

I suppose I should emphasize that I love grading for equity. I believed in it before the pandemic. But teaching during the pandemic helped me understand it. That's more than I can say about most of the people talking and writing about it.

 I'm here to learn.

Listen, I'm going to make mistakes. I'm teaching myself how to be a more public person using technological platforms that are new to me. It's not that different from learning the nuances of a new Learning Management System (UGH!) or creating a class website, but it's going to take some time. I want to try some things just for fun. What I'm saying is... I could use a little patience and some help. 

When I screw up by writing something that seems like it could be insensitive, or I write too much or too little, or I use a geezer word to describe something that might not even exist anymore (videoTAPE hello!), please let me know and I'll try to do better. 

Nothing I'll be writing will be intended to hurt anyone--not even crappy teachers I've worked with or loathsome administrators I've known. But it will be true and that means it might sting a bit. It should. If you suck at your job or you are lazy or vindictive, you should know it. And you should know that we know. I don't want you injured, just employed in a different field. Like brain surgeon. That way you can only kill one person at a time.

Next post we'll put some meat on these bones. 

This post is not the one I was going to write. In fact, it's not the one I had already written for today. I was up last night trying to figure out how to characterize what I'm hoping to do here. What am I talking about? I'm talking about what you need to do, what I needed to do, in order to put together a healthy, sustainable career in teaching. 

I think of the challenges as falling into two basic categories. First is the classroom. That's students and curriculum. It includes things from planning to classroom management to how do you grade all those freakin' papers? That's a hard part of the job and it's not getting any easier. However, for me, it was the other stuff that made me check my retirement account every other week.

If you are a teacher (or maybe some other kind of education professional--I'll get to more of that later) and you are feeling overwhelmed and frustrated in your job, it's very likely nothing to do with the kids. Or at least, not only or even primarily the kids. It's more likely to be a deplorable colleague, or out-of-classroom personnel whose job seems to be to give you extra work. Or it might be an incompetent or malicious administrator. Or you might be stymied by the abrupt and absurd demands of district administrators cosplaying as educators. 

During my career, these were the impedimenta vocationis (Google translate) that were the constant fuel for my retirement fantasies. The kids were the least of the problems. The truth is, they are the only reason to be there.

So what I'm talking about is this: For the classroom stuff there are lots of great places to get checklists and advice on how to set up your room and what to do about disruptive students--and we'll talk about some of that stuff here. But my main focus, and the reason I wrote Answer Key: A Teacher’s Completely Unofficial, Fiercely Unauthorized Handbook and Survival Guide, is to discuss and address the stuff that doesn't get talked about as much and for which there aren't checklists or "Ten Things" answers. Maybe it's because these feel like enormous, systemic problems with solutions--if there are any--far beyond the reach of mortal teachers. We have our hands full just getting through each minute of each day. 

Still, these are the things that drive a lot of good and potentially good teachers out of the business. I saw it happen and it nearly happened to me. So what do we do? What can we do? One thing I'm certain of: The impetus for change will not come from those who profit from the status quo. Power concedes nothing without a demand (Frederick Douglass, of course). Who will make the demand? 

It must be teachers. If not us, then who? Sure, let's recruit all the allies we can, but the movement--real movement--will have to start with teachers. And students? Now that's an idea...

That's what I'm talking about in Answer Key. How do we resist the education-industrial complex and its binary "data"-driven business model? How do teachers push back hard enough to reshape the system without making the bosses mad enough to bump us off?  (h/t John Huston The Maltese Falcon) I don't know. I don't know if it's possible to change the world. 

But from my own experience I do know this: It is absolutely possible to do the right thing and push back--a lot--against bad ideas and the people who peddle them. It's possible to do that AND sustain a long, profoundly rewarding career while staying sane and being kind. And it's possible to do all that and still wake up one day smack dab in the middle of a fabulous, glorious, magnificent retirement. Ready to stir shit up.

You can. Do it.

In the beginning I was pretty lost, flailing around day to day. Sometimes minute to minute. As time went on I got better and I became one of the teachers other colleagues could depend on for help. And every once in a while as we talked, one of us would forget to breathe, or begin to cry, or fight to hold it in, or just start shaking with frustration, and then someone would say some version of “How do you do it?"

The first time I was on the receiving end of that question I had only been on the job for a year and a half myself, so instead of listening, I talked. I told the other teacher that I tried to get to bed early and eat well and not drink too much--all good tips, by the way--but they practically rolled their eyes at me. The next day I asked a veteran teacher how they would have answered. “I just tell them, ‘Only you can answer that question.’  That usually works.”

Well, “Only you can answer that question” is a bullshit answer and teachers use it all the time. It almost never helps and in this case it’s not even true. Nobody can answer it. Certainly not the person who just arrived on another planet and doesn’t even know yet what the “it” is. And my own bullshit answer had been meaningless because I hadn’t even really heard the question. They were not asking about me. They wanted to know how they could do it. They wanted to know if they would ever be able to do it. 

If you are one of those teachers, if you are asking Am I the only person seeing this? Thinking this? Going through this? Am I the only one who thinks this is wrong? This is a place for answers. Here they are:

NO. You are NOT the only one. You are not crazy. What you are going through is real and it's bad. However, you can do this. You can survive the game, sustain a long and wondrous career. There are real strategies for navigating this corrosive system while holding on to your health and humanity. You can. Do this.

And who knows? Just maybe we can change things along the way. This blog is one part of an urgent and ongoing conversation about how we save schooling and ourselves.

Maybe you've heard it all before. I get that. So had I. So what makes this book and this blog (and me) any different? I retired this year, in a pandemic, while I was still pretty good. I owe nothing to anyone (except all the people I’ve learned from) and I have no fear. I can tell the truth. If we work together, maybe we all can.

First of all, thank you for joining me. 

For twenty-five years I worked in a system designed to destroy students, teachers, and the institution of public schooling. Alternately I growled or ground my teeth to nubs. I joined with colleagues to complain and resist. We led a strike. Through all of it, we had to moderate our criticism for fear of reprisal and concern for our careers. But truth muted is not truth at all.

Now I'm retired and I can say what I really think. I thought retirement was going to mean golf and day drinking my way through old movies in the afternoons. Instead, as soon as I was out of the classroom I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd been through--what we all go through as classroom teachers and education professionals. And now I had the time, so I started to write about it. 

First was a book. Answer Key: A Teacher’s Completely Unofficial, Fiercely Unauthorized Handbook and Survival Guide is nearly finished, and it has become obvious to me that I'm not yet finished in education. I want to be part of an ongoing conversation about schools and schooling, what's wrong with it and what can be done about it. Hence this blog. The day drinking will have to wait. 

Here on the Answer Key blog, I'll share my own insights and some of the obstacles I faced and solutions that I came up with over the course of my career. More than that, though, I really want to hear from you. Whether you are a brand new teacher looking for answers (for the first time) or a veteran with answers of your own, I want to hear about what you're dealing with and how you are thinking about it. We especially welcome all of you who are working right now to serve your students--in the face of absurd and incessant antagonism--but who feel constrained from telling your truth.

I am committed to making this a place where you can finally be heard and where your experience is valued and validated. It must become a place where you can safely say what we all know to be true, a place where, just maybe, we can devise ways to push back and cultivate strategies for resistance.  Welcome to Answer Key.

My name is Jeff Waid. Before retiring in January, I taught English and drama for over twenty-five years in the Los Angeles Unified School District. I have a Master’s in Education and was a National Board Certified Teacher from 2002-2012. 

I’ve also served as a mentor teacher, a department chair, a union rep, and I’ve taught prospective teachers at California State University at Los Angeles Charter College of Education as a part-time faculty member. 

Before that, I did a series of sub jobs at some pretty posh private schools in L.A. and way before that, I even did a couple of summers at an arts camp back east. Along the way I went through a boatload of “how to teach” classes and books and articles and videos and professional developments. 

What I didn’t find in any of them was the truth about what my colleagues and I were experiencing in our classrooms and in our schools. This blog is about that truth and, I hope, yours.