Lowering expectations isn't the answer. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with the

point. Last week, the LA Times reported that facing soaring Ds and Fs, more schools are just

doing away with grades entirely. Instead, teachers are encouraged to give students little to know

homework, move deadlines, and have fewer outcome-driven measurements of achievement. So what's

the rationale behind this? By continuing to use century-old grading practices,

wrote LA's chief academic administrator, we inadvertently perpetuate achievement and opportunity gaps,

rewarding our most privileged students in punishing those who are not. In other words,

standardized grades are racist. As in saying poor and minority kids can't get good grades,

it's self, racist?

A major reason to have merit-based grading systems is that if we don't evaluate students

based on achievement, we'll evaluate them on something else.

In this case, an administrator's preconceived idea about their ability to succeed, based only

on ethnicity or socioeconomic status.

Even more, by doing away with grades, educators are keeping students away from succeeding, no matter how hard they work.

This is a different kind of tyranny, the tyranny of low expectations.

I'm John Stone Street.