Spencer Brown, the spokesman for the Young America’s Foundation, told the “Todd Starnes Radio Show” Thursday that the San Fransico school board may be misguided in its effort to assign “A” grades to all students due to coronavirus outbreak.
Brown pointed out that schools across the country have tried to implement policies to accommodate students due to the unprecedented shelter-in-place orders. But he said handing out “A” grades seems ill-conceived.
“It’s a great way to boost your transcript,” Brown said. He said the decision would overlook students who put effort into their studies prior to the coronavirus outbreak, and could incentivize laziness.
“If this is implemented, that creates a real kind of bubble that students are going to have to overcome later on when they realize that they should have paid attention during that math class because everything else built on it afterward,” he said.
The San Francisco school board is working to assign “A” grades to all students do to coronavirus-related trauma.
“People are dying,” Alison Collins, a San Francisco board member, said at a recent meeting. “This is not the time for us to be acting normally.”
The teachers union said city educators have endorsed the idea, the New York Post reported.
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“If a student thinks that they would earn an A they should assign themselves an A,” Mark Sanchez, the board president, said. “If it’s a B it’s a B or a C or a D. We should trust them to make the right judgment.”
Two weeks ago, the University of California announced that it would suspend admissions testing for prospective 2021 students due to the coronavirus outbreak.
“The goal of these changes is to ensure a fair process that does not affect the life chances of students who, but for the coronavirus pandemic, would have become full-time students at the University of California,” Kum-Kum Bhavnani, chair of the Academic Senate, said in the statement.
The UC Academic Senate agreed to the decision, the Los Angels Times reported, and will temporarily suspend key admission regulations that will remove the SAT scores and letter grades for required courses.
Brown said while he understands that these schools are doing their best to deal with the crisis, it would likely make more sense to incorporate some kind of a pass or fail measure just to ensure there is some effort on the student’s part.