The adoption of equity grading in the Fairfax County Public Schools system is taking a toll on students and parents, with some arguing that it is harming education and future prospects.
Grading for Equity by Joe Feldman was published in 2018 but gained traction during the COVID-19 pandemic. The book argues for an overhaul in grading and teaching, including the exclusion of class rank. It is this provision that has caused problems, as those at the top of the class are left in the dark and unable to inform colleges.
FCPS is one of the largest school districts in the country, with a $3.8 billion budget.
Despite learning inadvertently that her daughter was one of the top three students in her class, one FCPS parent, speaking with the Washington Examiner, was shocked at graduation when no one was commemorated on academic grounds.
While applying for academic scholarships, the mother found that schools were asking for her daughter’s class rank, which she was unable to provide. She said she believes that the inability to provide the class rank harmed her ability to apply for scholarships.
FCPS’s rank was so broad as to be largely useless — the top 40%, 187 students out of about 487, were recognized as honor graduates, with no distinctions among them.
In an effort to find her daughter’s exact rank, the FCPS mother began a 14-month odyssey, being met with a lengthy back-and-forth with the principal, superintendent, and other school staff members, ending in a Freedom of Information Act request.
School officials claimed that they were not in possession of her class rank but later warned her that it had been compromised — an apparent contradiction.
“My feeling is whatever her class rank was, she earned it, and it’s her information, and doesn’t affect any other student, and she’s already graduated, so why would they care?” the mother said.
The opaqueness of the process led to a significant deal of frustration.
“Nobody ever said, ‘This is why we don’t give it to you,’” she said. “They just use their power to keep it from me. It’s not their information. It belongs to my daughter, and it’s something she earned.
“They went to such great lengths to keep it from me… they lied, obfuscated,” the mother added. “They came up with stupid things like, the FOIA office, ‘Oh, we don’t release GPAs,’ when I’m looking at them on the internet. It was disappointing, and it was frustrating.
“I’m just a mom, and I just saw my kid work really hard and earn this,” she said. “And the school fought me to keep it from her. … I just didn’t understand it. Like, why do you want to do that?”
Schools have not uniformly adopted the practice, and different schools adopt it differently — Loudoun County categorizes students in terms of the top 5%, top 6%-10%, and top 11%-20%. The FCPS mother said that would be much more preferable to the top 40% of Fairfax County.
Alex Nester, an investigative fellow at Parents Defending Education, warned the Washington Examiner last year about equitable grading.
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“Equitable grading hurts the very kids its proponents say they want to help,” Nester said in June 2023. “Kids who come from low-income families benefit most from fair systems based on merit and achievement. Equitable grading removes this rung in the ladder to success and opportunity for those kids.
“It sets the bar low and disincentivizes hard work,” he added. “It also makes it harder for Fairfax students to compete with students from other districts that base grading off of student performance.”