Voters in San Francisco -- yes, even San Francisco -- have their limits. They've made this clear by recalling their radical pro-criminal District Attorney and electing several other less-insane local leaders, in an effort to reverse the city's crushing crime problem. Thus far, better policies are yielding better results. Imagine that. They also threw out local multiple school board members, rebuking them for passing their time during the pandemic by locking children out of classrooms in acts of profound anti-science harm, while renaming empty school buildings as if it were some sort of Woke Olympics competition. Despite irate parents demanding an end to such madness, San Francisco schools have appeared poised to to replace their grading system with an "equity"-focused scheme. And it's just about as crazy as you thought or feared it might be (see update):
San Francisco schools is trying its absolute hardest to make sure all middle income families who could move out of the city do so right away
— Garry Tan (@garrytan) May 28, 2025
“Grading for Equity” is going to be a real disaster and I guess this is a boon for SF private schools and Burlingame housing prices https://t.co/Wtr9MQD2WM pic.twitter.com/WiKYETamlZ
New SF public school plan would
— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) May 28, 2025
- eliminate homework and weekly tests from counting toward semester grade
- allow students to take the final exam multiple times
- convert all B grades into As, and all Fs into Cs
It’s hard to see the difference between this policy and what… https://t.co/1ajUs8Ay3Q pic.twitter.com/p6wMyJDHIi
So-called "progressive" social experimenters cannot help themselves, contorting their weird racial obsessions and "fairness" fetish into twisted public policy. This one would do such a disservice to these students. Standards matter. B's aren't A's. F's aren't C's. Attendance matters. Homework matters. Testing matters. By watering everything down, they're robbing children of meaningful standards, and sacrificing competence and excellence on the altar of "equity." Even a leftist Democratic Congressman is sounding the alarm over this terrible plan:
My immigrant dad asked me where the missing 10% went when I scored a 90. He came to America for the chance to work hard & pursue excellence. Giving A’s for 80% & no homework is not equity—it betrays the American Dream and every parent who wants more for their kids. https://t.co/aFcF8SurV9
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 28, 2025
To his credit, Khanna also recently ripped another anti-excellence "equity" proposal in a different Bay Area district. It seems like lots of terrible ideas are densely concentrated on the West Coast, and especially in this small geographical area in Northern California:
It is absurd that Palo Alto School district just voted to remove honors biology for all students & already removed honors English. They call it de-laning. I call it an assault on excellence. I took many honors classes at Council Rock High in PA.
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) May 12, 2025
This is "equity" at work. It's an anti-student disgrace that does indeed assault excellence, in favor of a lowest-common-denominator approach that prizes equal outcomes over equal opportunities. It enshrines mediocrity, at best. Punishing success is a core tenet of "progressive" thinking. Relatedly, leftist journalist Scott Pelley just gave an overwrought, sneering, alarmist commencement address at Wake Forest last weekend. Here's part of what he said:
60 Minutes recently ran a lengthy report gushing over Germany’s anti-free speech policies, in which prosecutors laughed about confiscating phones and levying fines over bad thoughts. The lengthy report featured ZERO dissenting voices. Not even one quote against censorship. https://t.co/It79lvqWIK
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) May 26, 2025
His self-unawareness is off the charts. The 60 Minutes segment I reference in the tweet, by the way, is analyzed in greater depth here. It was astonishing. Pelley might want to watch his own show before spouting off about attacks on free speech. It must also be noted that some of the very worst assailants against free speech are universities themselves (Harvard especially), which he frames as similarly 'under attack.' In reality, they are having taxpayer funding revoked because of their pervasive civil rights violations, their coddling of terrorism supporters, their illegal discrimination, and their actions such as rewarding students who do things like physically assault Jews. Pelley works at CBS News, so when he inveighs against "grotesque false narratives," he should look inward. Part of his embarrassing jeremiad included this tendentious defense of DEI: "Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word." No, what is unacceptable is diversity and inclusion being weaponized into exclusion, discrimination and ideological indoctrination.
But I very much do endorse the proposition of shunning equity, for reasons illustrated above. Equity is a pro-discrimination project that spits in the face of equality, which should be a value. Equity represents a perverted and toxic egalitarianism that very much should be rejected. So should teachers union bosses like Randi Weingarten, who continue to spin and lie about their central role in inflicting lasting harm on millions of students during the pandemic. She can invent self-serving fairy tales all she wants. The truth remains the truth:
More disgusting lies from Randi Weingarten.
— Tommy Schultz 🇺🇸 (@Tommy_USA) May 28, 2025
Her C-SPAN clip makes it seem like she wanted schools back open in April 2020!
Never forget: "The text chains seem to show [CDC director] Walensky caving to pressure applied by Weingarten to keep schools shuttered in February 2021… pic.twitter.com/kF3cZU9C4S
Schools reopened safely everywhere that @rweingarten didn't have control. They stayed closed everywhere the politicians cowered to her. She kept schools closed and hurt the poorest children in the country. https://t.co/qrnOCnSkU3
— Karol Markowicz (@karol) May 28, 2025
On a similar note, I'll leave you with this extremely belated admission from sermonizer and former/future presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg:
What would @PeteButtigieg change if he could go back in time to 2020? pic.twitter.com/GMbINPwjr6
— The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) May 27, 2025
I prefer this acknowledgement to the alternative, to be sure, but Buttigieg was part of the problem:
And here's Pete RT'ing Chasten while Chasten bashes Devos for trying to open schools pic.twitter.com/pbuQP7vyNA
— John Hasson (@SonofHas) May 28, 2025
Looking back at a catastrophic policy, and seeing it for what it is, isn't nearly as important as showing leadership when it could have made a difference. Buttigieg is a human algorithm, seemingly designed to smoothly profess ideas that appeal to much of his political tribe. Crossing them by speaking up on this when it could have improved the lives of children would have demonstrated competence and courage. But there's no way he would have bucked the Dem base/Acela consensus when it mattered. And indeed, he did not:
Buttigieg’s 2020 hindsight —open the schools more quickly— would’ve been impossible
— Marc Caputo (@MarcACaputo) May 28, 2025
The D base/Acela media honchos & the expert class were adamant
I remember a Dem pol telling me I’d be complicit in kids’ deaths for not criticizing DeSantis enough when he opened schools early https://t.co/Os2WcX2h5f
His after-the-fact diagnosis, especially after it has indisputably harmed his political tribe electorally, isn't nearly as useful or impressive as real-time leadership would have been.
UPDATE - Horrendous policy killed, for now:
SFUSD kills controversial grading proposal after backlash https://t.co/5pgW7wZr17 via @sfchronicle
— Jill Tucker (@jilltucker) May 28, 2025
They're blaming the outcome on "misinformation," which is just perfect. But it also suggests it may be back.
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