The statement below is downloadable and shareable here.
Date: May 16, 2022
To: The Superintendent and District 125 Board of Education,
From: Chris Salituro
Re: Public Statement and Clarification of Salituro Resignation
Tonight's board meeting will include my letter of resignation and so I want to include this public statement regarding the letter. I know that my public resignation (see the letter here) has made waves both inside and outside of Stevenson. I have heard from teachers all over the United States and especially around our metropolitan area. But I am most concerned with the community that I have devoted the last 23 years of my career to – District 125. I have heard from dozens of students, parents and faculty. They have all expressed support and gratitude for my public statements. (See this list where I have tried to cull the support that I have received.) So, not only do I know that this is resonating with them, but I also realize that this must be making waves among you all (even though I have not heard from any of you since receiving my letter a few weeks ago. And because you must be dealing with the noise from it, I wanted to share more specifics regarding why the assessment practices are so flawed.
Detailed below is an explanation of the myriad issues with EBR. These are the issues that teachers all across the building have experienced. Teachers in every department have voiced these concerns. However, teachers have been told by union and directors that EBR is not changing. I do not know who in admin knows this and refuses to deal with it nor do I know who in admin continues to dig in their heels in support of EBR, but this is the reality. This is what has frustrated me for years and why I am leaving SHS at the height of my career. Although I submitted a letter to admin explaining this in January and then again in April, no one from upper admin has reached out to me except on last Friday when the principal showed up in my room and defended EBR again and was unwilling to either listen to my concerns or do anything about them. He will try to blame division directors, but they hear the same stubbornness from him too. Multiple union members have said the same as well. When they have tried to address this with the principal, he has continually been steadfast in his unwillingness to change.
I am concerned that some will try to scapegoat me or others who have been forced to try and work within this dysfunctional system. Please don’t let the larger issues below go unaddressed. Please don’t let the firestorm that I created put the attention on me – that would be an incredible disservice to the students, faculty and district. We have fantastic students and an amazing faculty but this system has been detrimental to mental health of both faculty and students, and it has hindered student learning. I obviously don’t think that anyone at Stevenson wants to contribute to this, including upper admin, but for whatever reason, there is an unwillingness to hear the concerns and feedback from neither students, parents nor teachers.
EBR sounds great as a philosophy but practically speaking it is not serving students and it is burning out faculty. Students do better when their environment is stable and predictable. EBR does not provide that. Instead, it creates an exhausting system of varying assessment practices that students find frustrating.
EBR is confusing and contradictory
EBR was created by upper administration but then pushed out to division directors who were forced to try and comply with the EBR mandate despite all of its inherent flaws. This is why every department has different practices regarding EBR. And many of the practices are not following what EBR is because teachers across the various divisions are struggling to make it work. They are trying to patch a broken system. For example:
· Some teachers grade on the trend and some grade on the overall mode. Those who use trend define it differently – a trend might be 1 most recent grade or 2 or 3.
· Some teachers grade skills such as reading and writing and others use categories like tests and homework.
· Some teachers are told that they can grade homework while others are told they can’t.
· Some teachers allow students to makeup work at any time during the semester while other teachers set dates limiting when work can be made up and they use that to affect the students’ grade.
· Some teachers have a grading system that moves with the most recent assignments and others grade the semester’s worth of assignments.
· Some teachers allow students to submit multiple attempts for an assessment while others move on to the next assessment.
· Some teachers grade with a bimodal score and others use a single mode.
But then, this dizzying array of practices does not translate to a “grade” but instead results in a confusing collection of qualitative descriptions: Exceeds, Meets, Approaches, Developing. These qualitative labels are also confusing – what does each mean? Many teachers use cutoff scores to define these – such as an 85% or above is meets or a 60% and above is approaches. This creates confusion because the cutoff scores vary from team to team and they have an enormous variation within each label: for example, a team might define both an 84% and a 61% as “approaches”.
EBR is frustratingly opaque
And in the end, what students really care about is what they need to go to college. And that is their final grade. But EBR keeps the final grade mysterious until the end of the semester. Admin will say that teachers should be having conversations with students about where they are at, but isn’t that what a gradebook is for - especially in this era when parents can see a daily summary of where their student is at? Instead, parents see “meets” “meets” “approaches” and they can’t make sense of that. And practically speaking, how or when is a teacher supposed to communicate with all 28 students what their overall grade is trending toward when that can change each week? That’s an incredible waste of time that can be spent teaching and learning in the classroom. Finally, admin will say that in the end, the final grade is at the professional discretion of the teacher. This leaves the final grade incredibly subjective. A teacher might see one student as having enough evidence to demonstrate that they are an A but that same teacher might use professional discretion for another student to be a B or C.
EBR is demoralizing for students
Even when a student might not have questions on their own grade, they still find it frustrating that some students can turn in assignments multiple times or two weeks late and still earn the same grade as other students. Even the most motivated students will be tempted to use these rules to their advantage. And after all, who can blame them? That is the system admin has created! This leads to students viewing deadlines as optional, and all work as a first draft because they know that they will have multiple chances to submit their evidence. And, because EBR only grades the modal score, students know that half of their grades are meaningless. If a student has 11 grades and 6 are “meets” but 5 are “approaches” that student might get the same grade as a student who has all 11 grades as “meets”.
EBR is an obstacle to helping students
And all of this is not just frustrating for students. Teachers have to field endless questions about grades. It takes away from teaching and learning. It erodes student effort. It places teachers at the center of grade conflicts where students feel that grades are negotiable and subjective. And, imagine being a part of a student support team and trying to help a student. Counselors, social workers, targeted tutors have no idea what a student’s grade is or how to help them. And many parents feel the same.
Please don't let this revelation fall by the wayside. I hope you will try to understand the issues I have spoken about. Please create a safe and honest space for students, parents and faculty to remedy these issues.
Sincerely,
Chris Salituro
Chris Salituro
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