Great New Progressive Project in San Fran: ‘Grading For Equity’; UPDATE: ‘Humiliating U-Turn’

In which a thought experiment designed to teach students the real consequences of socialism ends up as policy … inevitably, in San Francisco. Be careful what you metaphor, in other words. 

The thought experiment asks students to define equity, which usually produces some kind of demand for redistribution. The instructor agrees and then announces a plan to redistribute grade results on the basis of “equity,” with merits transferred from the achievers to the non-achievers. The point of this exercise is to apply real-world consequences to redistributions of results, and usually — usually — this teaches the students a lesson about punishing producers and incentivizing non-producers.

In San Francisco, however, the progressives have decided to implement this as policy in more than a dozen high schools. Not only did they try to sneak this change past parents, The Voice of San Francisco reports that the superintendent tried to sneak it past the board of education as well:

Without seeking approval of the San Francisco Board of Education, Superintendent of Schools Maria Su plans to unveil a new Grading for Equity plan on Tuesday that will go into effect this fall at 14 high schools and cover over 10,000 students. The school district is already negotiating with an outside consultant to train teachers in August in a system that awards a passing C grade to as low as a score of 41 on a 100-point exam. 

Were it not for an intrepid school board member, the drastic change in grading with implications for college admissions and career readiness would have gone unnoticed and unexplained. It is buried in a three-word phrase on the last page of a PowerPoint presentation embedded in the school board meeting’s 25-page agenda. The plan comes during the last week of the spring semester while parents are assessing the impact of over $100 million in budget reductions and deciding whether to remain in the public schools this fall. While the school district acknowledges that parent aversion to this grading approach is typically high and understands the need for “vigilant communication,” outreach to parents has been minimal and may be nonexistent. The school district’s Office of Equity homepage does not mention it and a page containing the SFUSD definition of equity has not been updated in almost three years.  

So what exactly is being incentivized in this new “Grading for Equity” system? Non-performance in practically every aspect of the educational experience:

Grading for Equity eliminates homework or weekly tests from being counted in a student’s final semester grade. All that matters is how the student scores on a final examination, which can be taken multiple times. Students can be late turning in an assignment or showing up to class or not showing up at all without it affecting their academic grade. Currently, a student needs a 90 for an A and at least 61 for a D. Under the San Leandro Unified School District’s grading for equity system touted by the San Francisco Unified School District and its consultant, a student with a score as low as 80 can attain an A and as low as 21 can pass with a D.  

Bear in mind that this pertains to high school, much of which remains compulsory in California. Children and teens between the ages of six and 18 must attend school (unless they have already graduated), or else truancy laws apply. Ask Kamala Harris about that; as both a DA in San Francisco and Attorney General in California, Harris prosecuted parents and actively campaigned for the 2010 law that supercharged truancy prosecutions, which came back to bite her in her 2019 and 2024 campaigns for president. Nor was she necessarily wrong to do so, even if later became politically inconvenient.

Now, however, the school district of San Francisco is incentivizing truancy by removing any disincentives for it. They are essentially killing independent study by removing the disincentives for reinforcement through homework too. And they are also killing the incentives for even classroom study by making all tests available for multiple re-tests. And on top of that, the district will lower the achievement standards so that their students can get good grades on the nth iteration of their tests, the only basis on which their grades will rest. 

This sounds more like “Grading for Laziness,” and not necessarily the laziness of the students, either. The students don’t benefit from this system — the teachers benefit from it. The students will be left uneducated and undisciplined in thought and action, while the teachers now don’t have to grade homework, take attendance, or do much other than proctor exams repeatedly until the desired “equity” outcome is achieved. 

The “equity” of this system appears premised on the assumption that the achievers will continue to work hard while the non-achievers end up benefiting from the easier acquisition of grades. Is that how it worked out in San Leandro? Not exactly:

The most recent data from both middle schools in San Leandro where grading reform started in 2016 document significant continued disparities among student populations when it comes to performance on statewide assessment tests. In both English and mathematics, the gaps ranged from twice to triple to even four times as many students meeting or exceeding the statewide standard in some subgroups compared to others. The children needing the most help and improvement are not getting it.

This system doesn’t provide “equity” at all in education. It throws away the students who need the most support while disincentivizing all of the other students at a point in life where discipline and work pay off the most. It is an abdication of the compulsory education system of its responsibilities to parents. 

Shame on Maria Su and all of the “educators” in San Francisco who hatched this scheme. And shame on parents who have the opportunity to remove their children from this system and allow them to remain anyway. 

Update: It apparently didn’t take long for the blowback to have an effect:

San Francisco’s education chief was today forced into a humiliating U-turn on a woke new program to lower pass marks in an effort to promote ‘equity.’  

Superintendent of Schools Maria Su unveiled the new ‘Grading for Equity’ plan last night that would have seen homework and weekly testing scrapped, with students allowed to pass with scores as low as 41 – down from the current pass mark of 61.

But just hours later on Wednesday afternoon, Su released a statement following widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum saying the district would hold off on implementing the move for a year.

That blowback also came from House Democrat Ro Khanna, who hit the nail on the head this morning:

We have a new generation of common sense Democrats with @DanielLurie and me speaking out on this absurd grading for equity policy. I am glad the superintendent took notice after a few hours and backtracked.https://t.co/DOaUd2xz36 https://t.co/DfjxxqDZR6

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 28, 2025

That’s great, but just imagine the impunity and extremism of the officials that thought this was a good idea. And note that Su isn’t ruling out trying it later, either.