U of Wisconsin at Madison implements ‘grade redistribution’ based on race

[Sdiver]

:facepalm:

U of Wisconsin at Madison implements ‘grade redistribution’ based on race

“I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.” So said then-candidate Barack Obama famously to Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelburger in Toledo as televisions cameras rolled in October 2012. Not everyone shares that opinion, including it appears Obama himself. Despite having earned $481,098 in 2013, the president was willing to part with only about 12.3% in the form of charitable deductions.

Although Obama doesn’t practice what he preaches, his ideas on wealth redistribution have caught on among liberals in academia who have hit upon another method for spreading the “wealth.”

Campus Reform reports on a new policy at the University of Wisconsin at Madison that seeks to redistribute good grades equally among students of different races. The “Framework for Diversity and Inclusive Excellence,” as the policy is called, aims for “proportional participation of historically underrepresented racial-ethnic groups at all levels of an institution, including high status special programs, high-demand majors, and in the distribution of grades.”

One former member of the university’s faculty has reservations about the arrangement. His name is W. Lee Hansen, and last week he authored a piece for the John William Pope Center for Higher Education Policy in which he stated:

Professors, instead of just awarding the grade that each student earns, would apparently have to adjust them so that academically weaker, ‘historically underrepresented racial/ethnic’ students perform at the same level and receive the same grades as academically stronger students.


Hanson has concerns as well about a facet of the framework that would essentially create arbitrary quotas in select fields of study based on race. He writes:

Suppose there were a surge of interest in a high demand field such as computer science. Under the ‘equity’ policy, it seems that some of those who want to study this field would be told that they’ll have to choose another major because computer science already has ‘enough’ students from their ‘difference’ group.


A post at National Review Online about the initiative is even more cynical:

Political correctness has for some time mandated that everyone get an A, so it was only a matter of time before the coercive forces seeking “Diversity and Inclusive Excellence” rendered grades utterly meaningless. But to commandeer grades as a vehicle for reparations? That level of brainlessness deserves an F — no matter what color you are.

http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/07...wtP4IAMeBAl.01

[PSM]

Hey, if it's good enough for the U of W it should be good enough for Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University. We need diversity in the cockpits of our airlines, too.

Pat

[NurseTim]

Is this called grading on a curve? Is this a new concept? I guess everything old is new again.

[PSM]

University of California, Santa Cruz, didn't START giving letter grades until 2001.

Pat

[Richard]

Something to consider - Thomas Jefferson - who attended the College of William and Mary for three years, studied law under George Wythe before entering the Virginia Bar, writer of the Declaration of Independence, President of the United States of America, and founder of the University of Virginia - never had an academic grade.

Here's a fair discussion of the grades issue which pretty much parallels the on-going debates we had as a faculty for the entire 13 years I was a high school principal.

http://beyond-school.org/2008/06/10/...back-teaching/

And so it goes...around...again...or something...

Richard

[Box]

I like it.

I think they should actually TAKE grades from the smarter students.

Fuck the bell curve... you didnt get an A+, you got a B- because we had to slide 12 points to the guy in the third row because he failed his math final. Now instead of an A+ and an F we have a B- and a C-

...I don't see a problem here.

[Badger52]

UPDATE: Professor Patrick Sims, Chief Diversity Officer and interim vice provost for Diversity and Climate at the University of Wisconsin - Madison released a statement Wednesday clarifying news reports of race-based redistribution of grades.

"The idea that UW-Madison will begin to base student grading or the make-up of programs or majors on race or ethnicity has circulated on the Internet," Sims wrote, "[n]othing could be further from the truth."

"This proportional and equitable distribution of grades arises (without intervention at the time of grading) by fostering living and learning spaces that are inclusive of historically marginalized students so that they can do their best learning and earn better grades; not through the “redistribution” of artificially-enhanced grades."

LINK

"Chief Diversity Officer and interim vice provost for Diversity and Climate..." ?

[MR2]

A whole lot of lack of oxygen going on over there - and in the Pentagon too it seems.

[Richard]

Although the report is considered complete, the implementation process is in an early phase. Designed as an iterative framework, the report is meant to guide more flexible discussions and act as a support structure, not a rigid set of rules.

http://diversityframework.wisc.edu/

Report: Goals and Recommendations by The Ad Hoc Diversity Planning Committee

http://diversityframework.wisc.edu/d...ay192014_2.pdf

For example, the report of the ad hoc committee includes recommendations like:

Goal 1: Promote Shared Values of Diversity and Inclusion

Recommendation 1.5: Promote the use of teaching strategies and content where difference contributes to the learning and build a classroom climate that supports difference and risk-taking. Provide opportunities to learn new teaching methods, create new curriculum, adapt courses, assess effectiveness, and share with others. Provide incentives to faculty, academic staff, and Teaching Assistants to build inclusive approaches and incorporate content that broadens student ability to live and work in an increasingly diverse world.

Goal 5: Improve Institutional Success through Improved Retention

Recommendation 5.4: Increase support services for nontraditional students (e.g. single parents, returning adult students, student veterans, multiple-transfer students, etc.)

I didn't see anything among the recommendations (as adapted) that would indicate the UW-M is doing what some are claiming. It might be worthwhile to actually read the report before offering sky falling interpolations of it.

Richard

[Team Sergeant]

Originally Posted by PSM

Hey, if it's good enough for the U of W it should be good enough for Embry–Riddle Aeronautical University. We need diversity in the cockpits of our airlines, too.

Pat

Doctors and nurses too! Who needs straight A's anyway?

[PedOncoDoc]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Doctors and nurses too! Who needs straight A's anyway?

When our medical school class was assigned into small groups for projects, there was clear segregation by race (black students in one group - all others split seemingly randomly into others) - I always wondered if something was going on behind the scenes...

[Box]

Originally Posted by DocIllinois

I see the lib programming is working well on you, Billy.

With this kind of social awareness you'll be running for a seat in a blue state in no time.

I hope I have your vote...
...when I retire after 30 years of putting my family second for this kind of crap you can bet your ass I am going to jump into liberal politics with both feet.

THATS WHERE ALL THE REAL MONEY IS

[BryanK]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

I hope I have your vote...
...when I retire after 30 years of putting my family second for this kind of crap you can bet your ass I am going to jump into liberal politics with both feet.

THATS WHERE ALL THE REAL MONEY IS

Spoken like a true future "Man of the Sheeple"

[PSM]

Originally Posted by Team Sergeant

Doctors and nurses too! Who needs straight A's anyway?

Been there; done that!

They already did that back in the 70s when Alan Bakke was passed over at UC Davis Medical School for Patrick Chavis who, twenty-some years later would lose his license to practice having caused the death of at least one patient and been sued for malpractice 21 times. But hey, at least Ted Kennedy was able to declare that Chavis was the ''perfect example'' of how affirmative action worked.

Pat

[atticus finch]

Originally Posted by Billy L-bach

I like it.

I think they should actually TAKE grades from the smarter students.

Fuck the bell curve... you didnt get an A+, you got a B- because we had to slide 12 points to the guy in the third row because he failed his math final. Now instead of an A+ and an F we have a B- and a C-

...I don't see a problem here.

I agree, what better way to teach kids the brutal unfairness of having the results of your hard work stolen from you without your consent in the name of so-called "fairness"
Make this policy nationwide in all colleges and let the kids know what it's like firsthand. Then lets see what they think about the "fairness" of so-called "income redistribution" in the name of said "fairness" When they've already had thier grades "Redistributed" in the name of "fairness"