Based on these numbers, may be UC already adopted the UT model and just didn’t tell anyone.
Then again, just antidotally looking it these numbers, I’m surprised parents from “high performing” schools in CA have not analyzed the openly available information and dispersed their kids to “lesser” schools.
Some of those factors are indeed related to mastery. Graded homework is a daily assessment of subject mastery on specific questions. Written assignments which require a well written cogent essay do require proper grammar and conventional spelling to demonstrate an ability to produce such an essay. Foreign language study requires verbal fluency, so participation is an appropriate criteria for assessment. I don’t think that is what the Palo Alto district is concerned about when it tries to differentiate student conduct from grades.
University must come as a shock to students used to credit for non-academic performance.
I am glad we are in agreement that the Palo Alto approach is a positive change. But to be clear it is very much an Equity driven change, a movement against the conservative and traditional approach to education where well resourced families who know how to “game the system” excel and others do not.
Here is a description of the Palo Alto approach from a few years ago, earlier on in the implementation . . .
Standards-based learning evolved in response to what proponents see as flaws in the traditional grading system: the conflation of behavior and academics, averaging of scores, high-stakes tests and embedded inequalities that tip the scales toward students with more resources, such as tutors or homework help from parents. In the standards-based model, students are given frequent opportunities to practice and improve, including by retaking tests to address the specific areas in which they’re struggling. A student who improves over the course of a class gets credit for that rather than being penalized for poor performance on an early test due to averaging. Homework becomes an optional means for practice rather than points toward a grade.
“In true standards-based grading schools, kids are given lots of opportunities to reach the standards,” said Denise Pope, co-founder of Stanford University education-reform Challenge Success, which helps schools implement the grading practice. “You see a much bigger range of kids being successful than just the kids who know how to play the game.”
It is marginally better than nothing, but poorly prepares students for a future higher education (or workforce) which does not permit endless re-takes. Still, I suppose it is preferable to giving out A grades for attendance. Just strengthens the argument for standardized testing, since the grades are close to meaningless, if one is interested in ascertaining relative ability.
Of course one might not be. Public colleges should reflect taxpayer priorities, whatever those are. Maybe taxpayers want colleges to be primarily drivers of social mobility/redistribution of income. That leads to different admission decisions
I think this is isn’t really an accurate characterization of what happens in the traditional model which Palo Alto was following previously. To broadly generalize in order to address your repeated claim about grades for attendance, traditional schools weren’t really giving out A grades for attendance. Rather, traditional schools dock and fail kids whose parents don’t get the kids to school consistently or on time, whether or not the kids can master the material. And once it became clear to the kids that they aren’t going to be able to meet the procedural demands, they quit trying.
In other words, families who did not have the resources or wherewithal jump through the procedural hoops were being severely penalized and not being given adequate opportunities to develop and and demonstrate mastery of the material.
So it isn’t giving As for attendance, it is about giving Fs for absences.
It doesn’t at all strengthen the argument for standardize testing, because the grades are actually tied to what students have learned and mastered, rather than whether they jumped through the procedural hoops.
Per the article, Palo Alto is trying to address whether an A means “the student actually mastered the material or just showed up and didn’t make waves.”
Exactly. Which is why the approach does not strengthen the argument for standardized tests. If the grades actually reflect mastery of material rather than the host of other issues upon which traditional schools grade, then looking at the grades gives a much clearer picture of what the students have actually learned.
Correction,such a grade means a student eventually mastered the material with perhaps numerous attempts over a long period of time. If those conditions aren’t likely to be repeated in college, that experience isn’t very useful.
Even I could complete a marathon given several days, plenty of rest stops, and snacks along the way. That doesn’t mean I should sign up for the Boston race next year.
Does someone have an unlocked version of the Chron article about the Palo Alto schools’ “new system,” or perhaps someone is willing to copy paste relevant excerpts? Or maybe another unlocked article somewhere has the details.
When I compare public vs private schools in our area, it seems to me that factors like these can and do affect grades in both types of schools, but in private schools the factors are more implicit in the grading system (and of course private school students can also be expelled if their behavior is bad enough), while the public schools make these factors more explicit (and they also don’t have the same freedom to expel students).
My D attended both public and private middle school at different times. In the public middle school, there was an explicit “habits of work” factor in the grade for every class, and students were made explicitly aware of all of the good habits that they should learn and that went into this grade (note that the public HS doesn’t have “habits of work” built into its grades, it’s something that is supposed to be scaffolding for students in MS to learn good behavior, but is phased out in HS).
On the other hand in the private middle school, there was no explicit factor, but the grading also seemed much more subjective, with the teacher simply assigning grades for many things (and I definitely got the impression that simply being perceived by these teachers as a smart, intellectually curious, industrious, and well-behaved student went a LONG way towards getting good grades).
My D now attends public HS and her best friend attends private HS, and I see a similar contrast. Every grade in public HS is specifically linked to a set of very explicit factors, some based on tests and quizzes, and other work that is scored on a strict rubric, and there is typically a small amount of the grade for “participation” but with an explicit system that the students understand, related to attendance, speaking up, etc.
The various components of the grades at the friend’s private HS seem to be somewhat more subjectively assigned and less on a rubric, and they also have “participation” which does not have explicit components but is felt to be more of the teacher’s perception of the student’s participation. Between themselves, the two friends believe that at the private HS, grades are more influenced by the teacher liking the student and having an overall impression of the student as a “good student.”
Here is the archived version: http://archive.today/V87Zi
Seems like you aren’t really a supporter of the changes after all.
As I said before, it is a marginal improvement. I suppose any forward progress should be celebrated.
Thanks! I see that the article doesn’t actually focus on what I expected, from the post I quoted above. I guess my post is somewhat beside the point, then 
I too was confused about how the article has been presented in this thread and another. I think your post is somewhat related, though.
The topic of teaching for and grading based on mastery of the material has been discussed in a number of different threads. The poster introducing the topic here is usually on the other side of the conversation which is why I was surprised.
Maybe the @moderators or someone else who knows how will move this entire tangent to another thread, as it doesn’t much to do with the topic of the thread?
The connection to the thread is that the current system of admissions at UC may not be fully supported if it is revealed admissions officers are relying primarily on grades, which can be awarded for merely showing up and not commiting a felony in class.
Luckily, we know from @Gumbymom’s hundreds of replies on this that the UCs rely on 13 factors, not just grades. Also, the UCs are aware of HS by HS student success at each UC campus, so unrepresentative grades are continuously sussed out.
Ah yes, the famous 13 factors. As long as Cali taxpayers are happy…
Take one weekend off and…
But what does ‘geographic location’ mean in the context of UC admissions? We have no idea what the weight put on this is or how it is used. I would be fine if they said “we are trying for roughly an equal proportion of population within a county to proportions at each UC. You can vary it but give people an idea of what the impact is. If people know that they are primarily competing within their locality it is easier to say ‘it’s tougher here’.
Because appearances matter.
Lynbrook Kids are ethnically concentrated and Mission kids are ethnically concentrated and their admissions success is extremely different (overweight on Engineering coming out of Lynbrook may make a difference here but without insights from Mission we have an inadequate basis for comparison), different to the point where people start to question things.
These comments would draw lots of discussion and disagreement for the elite privates who should be shaping their classes to what institutional mission and priorities that they have within the law. For Public schools which have a very different mandate and purpose I doubt that most of the populace they are mandated to serve would agree with you.
Your first comment sounds like a perfect justification for patronage and your second for making admissions a lottery in the name of ‘fairness’ to all of the students of the state. Neither is very appealing.
I suspect that Lynbrook is already “not a very pleasant place” from comments from kids and parents. Gunn and Paly are also very unpleasant places for many kids. I personally know ot attempted suicides, threats of suicide which required withdrawal from school and a highly respected teacher who said of her kids experience; “one thrived, one survived, and one made me wish we never moved here.” Not a ringing endorsement of the environment.
I’m not really sure where we agree or disagree. You can partially optimize for the criteria but looking at the criteria list I would guess that the first 7 items are pretty much the same for the vast majority of kids at a school like Lynbrook, Paly, or Gunn relative to other similar students within their school. And objectively they are likely a far higher bar than at many schools.
I am sure that the same holds for Mission though at a much lower bar since the school only offers 5 AP classes.
So it is the uncontrollable/unknowable factors that jump out as the driving force in admissions and suddenly admissions to the top UCs are starting to look as opaque as admissions to the T20 and I don’t think that is what most people want.
It absolutely would, but there is also a level of clarity of just who they are competing against in the first cut of admissions and the lack of clarity is what I think drives much of the feelings of bias.
No it doesn’t because while we’ve spent most of this thread with UCB and UCLA as the focus of conversation but the pattern holds for UCSD, UCI, UCSB, and UCD. The admit percentages at high performing bay schools trail the averages. Lynbrook is overweight on CS/Engineering type kids because of their parents background but that likely doesn’t hold true across a wider group of schools while the admit underachievement does.
That is fine for a public flagship which should have a very different mandate or mission than a private school. I fully support geographic diversity and socioeconomic diversity goals at public schools, it goes hand in hand with their purpose. Where I get frustrated is a lack of willingness to explain the unexplainable because it creates resentment and a lack of trust. I see kids (and parents) from all over the peninsula and during ‘admissions season’ UC admissions is a pretty common talking point. Some parents feel that certain groups are discriminated against and among the kids and other parents the comments are that the system is rigged. Both types of comments reflect negatively on views of ‘fairness’ within the system in the eyes of parts of the population.
That is exactly how some of the students admitted into Ivys should be described. Not the absolute best but students who will be successful and are filling an institutional priority at a Private Institution. The UCs are not private institutions, they are public institutions subsidized by CA taxpayers.
I think cost drives much of the frustration as well. The UCs are a good value. Alot of bay area families are classic ‘doughnut hole’ economics. They appear to have high incomes but when everything is expensive that income doesn’t go nearly as far as it might appear, especially for families facing multiple kids in college at the same time. It is hard to simultaneously save the downpayment for a $2M house as well as college funds and families are looking for colleges which they can afford and align academically to the levels of their kids’ achievements. The top UCs fit this profile and the common consensus is that admissions to a ‘state school’ should not be as challenging (or opaque) as admissions into a T20 for residents of the state.
I do not see a huge difference between the kids going to the top UCs and the T20s at my kids school nor among the kids that I interact with. I am sure that there are some EC differences that I’m not aware of but in terms of intellectual horsepower they are all quite high if they are shooting for UCB, UCLA, and UCSD. The kids skipping those three and looking at UCI, UCSB, UCD as their targets are generally a notch lower but still very capable kids who would do fine at any T20 if they got in.
There are some differences in approach to the situation in that some groups feel discriminated against but still apply while others just accept it as ‘rigged’ and switch their focus to T50 level schools shotgunning for merit if it is needed but including other top publics if cost isn’t an issue. One thing that I do not see is any of these kids doing is looking at Alabama, ASU, etc. as options even with large merit available.It should happen but it doesn’t.
I think that the Tx model is a ‘strawman’ or ‘stalking horse’ for a discussion of the subject. Even Tx doesn’t guarantee admissions into a specific major. But quickly looking at your numbers an easy first step would be for the system to cap OOS enrollment for high demand majors at say 10% and you just closed the gap that you mentioned. Favoring in-state kids is good policy but the UC system would cry ‘revenue’.
Another potential improvement would be to let kids apply to multiple majors and work a ranked admissions model. Kids might want CS but they’d be happy with CS, EE, CE, etc. Let kids apply and be offered acceptance in multiple areas. Right now kids are effectively applying to a course if it is an in demand major while in actuality they would be fine with several different options in many cases.
Moving beyond thinking of the UCs individually or as a monolith could also be considered. As it currently works ELC is nothing but virtue signaling. Offering kids spots at UCM or UCR is nothing but show. The kids that we are talking about would be admitted into those schools if they applied. Texas has UT-Austin (and maybe A&M) but the UC system has arguably six top schools and ELC could be made meaningful. Take the reduction in OOS admissions mentioned above, do the same for all six schools and use that as a pool to randomly assign offers.
I am sure that there are many more ideas to explore.
What is fundamentally unserious is failing to acknowledge that the system as it currently stands creates mistrust among significant segments of the population especially within some geographic regions. Or, that the operation of the system cannot be improved to better serve more well deserving kids from CA. Any system that generates the level of noise that the UC system does (epic conversations around UCI admissions this cycle) or in parts of the CSU system ( SDSU, CP SLO) while being openly called “biased” or “rigged” isn’t one that we should consider as doing a masterful job because it isn’t.
It would help to stop pretending every admit is stellar. Adequate, maybe ( but likely not always). But certainly not stellar, at any place in the US. The self-promotion and grade inflation is absurd here.
Public universities need a transparent system its citizens trust for continued support and legitimacy. Whether Cali has that I leave to the taxpayers there.