Background: The Equitable Grading Bill
Midyears are arguably one of the most stressful times of the year for students. With six tests in three days, a walk through the halls of the high school groups of huddled students, dissecting the last question on their math exam in a panic or using every spare second to pour over their chemistry notes. Now imagine you are the kid with a World History Honors exam that involves 100 multiple choice questions of the entire year’s worth of content studied up till that point. You find out right before the test that your friend’s World History Honors exam looks a little different: it’s a written reflection about how the quarter has been going. During a three day period with six important exams in close succession, a discrepancy like this is simply not fair. It is for this reason that we created the Equitable Grading Bill.
As we’ve lobbied the bill, we’ve engaged in meaningful discussions with students and teachers from all parts of the school. After 18 months of work dedicated to making the bill meaningful to students and palatable to teachers, the bill passed at the March 12 Legislature meeting, 21:11. In spite of this nearly ⅔ majority, some have suggested they want the bill to be vetoed (a power held by Head of School Anthony Meyer). As two Legislature representatives and sponsors of the bill, we’re going to tell you why Mr. Meyer should not veto the Equitable Grading Bill.
This bill gives students the right to midyears and finals assessing a similar depth and breadth of content (ex. cumulative vs. unit test) and creates identical grading policies regarding late work and extensions as well as bases of final grades (cumulative vs. 25 percent per quarter). The Equitable Grading Committee came with one goal: to ensure students are graded fairly based on their own work rather than the varying policies of different teachers. The bill also combats practices like “teacher shopping,” where students purposefully change their schedules to get “easy” teachers. This bill is a fraction of what it was when we began the drafting process 18 months ago. Version one included a larger number of policies that need to be standardized, including retakes and revisions. We decided to standardize midyears, late work and the basis of final grades as a good middle-ground policy that balances teacher autonomy with student equity.
The Democratic Process
One of the high school’s frequently repeated mantras is “Freedom and Responsibility,” which is manifested in the agency students and teachers alike wield to impact our community. One of the most influential examples of this is the government at our high school, modeled distinctively after that of the United States. Our legislature is made of equal numbers of student and teacher representatives, who work together to write and pass bills to edit the Handbook—our “law of the land.” The representatives on Legislature have been elected to vote by their constituencies. If Legislature members vote to pass a bill, it is a representation of the people’s will. In this manner, students are empowered to take an active role in their community and learn by engaging in the democratic process alongside their teachers.
It’s hard to overstate how much students want this bill passed. Every time the phrase “Equitable Grading Bill” comes up in one of my classes, it’s followed by the question, “When’s that getting passed?” from peers who have no shortage of examples of how their friend from a different section of the same course is benefiting from a more lenient grading policy. Even students who’ve found themselves on the other side of the issue have expressed that they’d prefer potentially stricter and standardized policies to the current lottery system. Many teachers have expressed support for this bill as well, saying that the efforts of certain departments to ensure a similar student experience across a course are slow and often flouted.
This bill has undergone nine versions over the past 18 months, and the current iteration is the result of countless hours of contemplation, deliberation and debate. We’ve arrived at a version of the bill that has strong support from students as well as faculty.
The Head of School veto should be used only when a bill contradicts laws at a higher level (Town Hall, state or federal), is not supported by a majority of the school or will greatly interfere with learning. The bill is backed by the vast majority of students and a large share of teachers, squarely giving it the support of the majority. In a straw poll taken at the Faculty Meeting on March 4 (127 respondents), of teachers who did not select undecided, 75 percent supported the first clause which standardizes midyears and finals, 39 percent supported the second clause which standardizes late work and extension policies, and 73 percent supported the third clause which standardizes the basis of final grades. However, a significant portion of the teachers who disagree with the second part of the bill still want it passed, contributing to the final percentage of 50 percent total support for the entire bill from teachers (with near unanimous support from students). When a clear majority of the school supports the bill, a veto would be against the democratic process that this school has entrenched in the constitution and its institutional values. To veto it would be a clear message that the power teachers and students allegedly possess to actively influence their school community is purely symbolic.
“Rating: Does Not Meet the Standard”
The lack of standardization and class misalignment is not only a problem recognized by students and teachers. The New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC), an independent accrediting agency for schools across New England, clearly identified the issue during their visit and report on the school in May 2023. Page 33 of the NEASC report on the high school stated, “A consistent theme throughout the visit was the different experiences of students taking the same courses and the feeling that the teacher a student is assigned for a particular course will make or break their experience in that course.” This statement pinpoints a large problem in the school: teacher shopping, a practice where students attempt to change courses because of the belief that certain teachers “will make or break their experience.” NEASC followed up, stating, “students deserve consistent and guaranteed outcomes from their courses,” aligning directly with the motive behind this bill to create a baseline level of standardization to remove substantial discrepancies. The school’s response (Page 33) to such advisories from NEASC was that “The school has a culture of autonomy that has resisted standardizing curriculum,” but that “we need to ensure that we have consistency of curriculum.” This bill follows the professed goal of the high school by working towards creating a more common experience between different sections of the same course. This bill brings the exact changes that NEASC outlines and the school has agreed to adopt “common baseline expectations and norms around assessment” and “consistency of curriculum.” The Equitable Grading Bill would give students the right to consistent grading policies across midyears and finals, late work and extensions, and grade calculation, thereby working towards the NEASC’s recommendation of increasing standardization. A veto against this bill would be contradictory to the changes the school has agreed to fix and that the NEASC has deemed as necessary, a sign of the school’s resistance to follow their word.
Why the Equitable Grading Bill needs to be in the handbook
A common argument against the bill is that this work should be taken on directly by curriculum coordinators and kept out of the Handbook. Additionally, after talking to the coordinators, we’ve gotten the impression that it can be hard to enforce the spirit of standardization without firm language in the Handbook defining what that means. A veto would reject the will of many school leaders and hinder their ability to address a problem recognized by the administration. Putting the Equitable Grading Bill in the Handbook will also give students something to point to when their rights are being violated, thereby providing a path to rectify any such disputes.
Conclusion
We are two students committed to ensuring our peers are graded based on their own effort rather than the varying grading policies of their teachers. In the end, the student experience across a particular course must be standardized in certain respects. This work is best achieved through legislation that puts the expectation for standardized policies in writing. If the high school is truly devoted to its goal of reaching a more standardized student experience, then the Equitable Grading Bill is the first step in the right direction. The fact that this bill has passed is a manifestation of the will of the school community that supports it. To veto the Equitable Grading Bill would go against the pillars of democracy, freedom and agency this school stands for.
In terms of a “legal basis”, section 1.3 of Article 2 of the Handbook states, the “jurisdiction [of the legislature] includes but is not limited to all questions of discipline and school rules, attendance, policy… course curricula, homework policy, and grading policy” (11) It is clear that this bill is within the purview of Legislature and a veto would be an unnecessary infringement on the power of Legislature. There is already precedent for rules that apply to teachers that are enshrined in the Handbook: for example, Tackling Injustice (60), Grade Rounding (69), and Test Grade Transparency (71).
