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Gene Tavernetti: Welcome to Better Teaching, Only Stuff That Works, a podcast for teachers, instructional coaches, administrators, and anyone else who supports teachers in the classroom.

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This show is a proud member of the BE Podcast Network shows that help you go beyond education.

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Find all our shows@bepodcastnetwork.com.

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I Am Gene Tavernetti the host for this podcast.

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And my goal for this episode, like all episodes, is that you laugh at least once and that you leave with an actionable idea for better teaching.

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A quick reminder, no cliches, no buzzwords.

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Only stuff that works.

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Today I had the extreme pleasure to talk to Dr. David Griffith about a topic that we have not discussed before on better teaching only stuff that works and that is grading.

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And, uh, had a chance to talk to Dr. David Griffith, who is from the, uh, Fordham Institute and where he's the director of research and he manages or authors reports on various subjects including charter schools, accountability and civic education.

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His research has been published or cited in numerous outlets including the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, the New York Post, USA Today, national Affairs and Education Week, a native of Portland, Oregon.

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David holds a bachelor's degree in politics and Philosophy from Pomona College, a master's degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University, and a PhD in public policy from George Washington University.

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Prior to joining Fordham, he worked as a staffer for Congressman Earl Blumenau, a research assistant at Data Quality Campaign and Education Sector, and a high school social studies teacher in Washington dc.

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In his spare time, David enjoys playing soccer and embarking on literary and culinary adventures with his wife Lindsay and his two children, James and Aurora.

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I think you're gonna like this discussion.

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Hello, David.

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Thank you so much for being on better teaching Only stuff that works

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David: Thanks so much for having me Gene.

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Gene Tavernetti: well.

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It's my pleasure.

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I know that, you had posted something that I was, became first aware of it on Twitter or x, whatever we call it.

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And it was a, an article about some research that you folks had done about grading equity.

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In fact, the title of the article was Equitable Grading Through the Eyes of Teachers.

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Could you talk a little bit about that?

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And I'm sure I'll be interrupting you with questions as you go.

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David: Yeah, sure thing.

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So, as I think you mentioned I'm an education researcher and I work for the Thomas p Fordham Institute and we study all things K 12.

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And so, you know.

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Grades are obviously central to the work of schools.

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And so they're one of the things that we study.

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And you know, in recent years we have gotten concerned, I would say about what is happening to grades with, you know, just nationally.

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Basically in every state, I would say and your listeners are probably familiar with this, but you know, we have seen a lot of grade inflation in recent years.

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This is not a new phenomenon.

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You know, I think pretty much anybody, if they ask their mom or their dad they'll say, well, it's easier to get an A than it used to be, right?

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But in the last, say five or six years it has really taken off.

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In part because of the pandemic which just obviously was, you know, a huge curve ball for our education system.

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But then I think also for other reasons, which is what we wanted to sort of study in this report there has been a long standing.

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Movement to reform grading.

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And it has probably a longer history than I can do justice to in this space.

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And it has many different players and many different motivations.

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But in the last few years there has been sort of a rise of something called grading for equity.

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And it's associated with you know, a few notable kind of grading gurus.

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The policies that it pushes for anecdotally we knew were adopted by some fairly big districts.

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And generated some controversy.

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So we wanted to take a closer look at this because as far as we could tell, there was really no systematic data that was telling us how widespread these new grading practices were.

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And basically what was happening it was an understudied phenomenon.

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So that's what the report is about.

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Gene Tavernetti: So when are we talking about equitable grading?

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What are we talking, what are we saying?

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David: Yeah, so it's obviously it's a term that gets used a lot these days.

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And I don't know exactly when we decided that everything.

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Had to be equitable.

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But it increasingly encompasses things that aren't, or things that not everyone will agree are equitable.

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So we chose to focus on five policies that seem to be promoted by e advocates for equitable grading.

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There's no official

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Gene Tavernetti: David, just to give you a break here, is that the equitable was in quotes

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On your report.

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David: It was, and we debated that, right?

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Because, you know, it makes it, it does when you put it in scare quotes, right?

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You are taking a position and you're saying something, right?

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And you're saying something about how you feel.

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But, you know, I may as well put my cards on the table here.

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Right?

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We did not really agree with the thrust of these reforms.

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Teachers do not really agree with them.

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And we didn't really want to give the people who are pushing them the word equitable, because it's something that is often used as a club.

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And really we shouldn't do things or not do them because the word equitable is affixed to the policy, right?

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We should do it if it makes sense, if it helps kids.

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And so.

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You know, well, yes.

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We put the scare quotes around it anyway to address your questions.

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Right.

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It, you know, we looked at five policies and we gave them kind of pithy labels to help people wrap their heads around them.

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So the first policy is called like No Zeros, and some listeners may have heard of it.

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And it is basically this idea that you are not going to give.

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Kids Zeros for assignments that they don't turn in.

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Because doing so will have such a sort of de deleterious effect on their grades that they may get discouraged.

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And then, you know, you'll lose them for the rest of the semester and they won't really try.

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The second policy was we called it No Late Penalties.

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This is the idea that basically you know, that kids, particularly marginalized kids maybe will struggle with getting things in on time, right?

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And they deserve the opportunity to show what they know or you know, get credit for work that they have done.

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And so, you know, we should essentially not have late penalties and let them turn the work in in, you know, when, whenever they do it.

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The third policy, we called it unlimited retakes.

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This one is basically the idea is if a student has bombed a test or a quiz that student should be in a, be allowed to retake the test or the quiz without penalty.

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You know, and sort of incentivize you know, give the student a chance to try again and to show what they're capable of doing and to improve their performance.

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And then the final two policies we called, one we called no participation, and the other we called no homework.

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And the basic idea as those names sound is that suggest is that teachers should not assign any points for homework and they should not assign any points for participation.

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In other words, there shouldn't be some element of the grade that is based on participation

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Gene Tavernetti: so the proponents of these.

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Equitable policies are saying that you should not get a participation grade

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and not get credit for homework.

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David: yeah, there, there should be no, there should be no participation grade and no points for homework.

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Yes.

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Gene Tavernetti: Okay.

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David: So, no, that's okay.

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I mean, I can give a summary of what teachers.

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Think of these policies.

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I guess I should also say they're, you know, they're both policies and practices, right?

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And so we asked you know, a few questions about each of those from each angle.

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But I think the main thing to understand is that when we asked teachers if these policies were in effect.

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In their schools or districts.

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A lot of them said yes.

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So overall, more than half of the teachers in our sample, which was a nationally representative sample, said that their school or district had adopted at least one of these policies.

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Right.

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So not as an option, right, but as something that all teachers in the school or district were supposed to do.

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So I'll just, you know, listeners can take a moment to imagine you're a teacher.

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You're teaching, I don't know, ninth grade social studies like I did.

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And the message that you get from above is all students must get a grade of at least 50% for assignments whether or not they turn them in.

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Okay.

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This is a thing that's actually happening in American schools.

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And it's not just happening in a few of them.

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It's happening in a lot of them, and it's disproportionately happening in classrooms and schools and settings where a majority of the students are students of color.

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Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so the results that you presented, the results that you presented from the survey was for each of those categories,

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David: Yes.

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So, so

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Gene Tavernetti: you broke it down.

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Okay.

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David: yeah if you take it, if you take it policy by policy there's sort of three policies that are particularly common.

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One is no zeros.

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Another is no wait penalties, and another is unlimited retakes.

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Each of those is present in somewhere between 25 to 30% of American classrooms.

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And then the other two policies, no participation and no homework are in effect in about one in 10 American classrooms.

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And so, you know, it's not as though like, none of no single policy has a majority in all classrooms.

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But lemme just make a couple points.

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First of all, I included K five in those numbers, okay?

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So I'm including.

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Grades where we wouldn't even normally sort of think of students as having you know, as ha as earning letter grades.

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Right?

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So the actual adoption rate for the grades that we kind of typically associate with grading is higher.

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And then I think the other point that needs to be made is some of these policies are they're not quite redundant.

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They serve similar purposes.

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So, for example, if your goal and nobody will sort of say this out loud, but if your goal is basically to lower grading standards to make it easier for kids to get an A or a B,
and you adopt a policy of no zeros you, you basically do not need some of these other policies in order to get more kids into the passing range because it's such a powerful policy.

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It has such a strong impact on kids' finals grades that, you know, you don't necessarily need to have to also have a no homework policy or a no participation policy.

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'cause you've already you've already effectively told students you'll get half credit for assignments that you don't do.

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Gene Tavernetti: Okay, so, a few questions because it's, I'm having a hard time.

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First of all, I'm gonna go back to your original statement about one of your original statements about that grading.

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These conversations have been going on

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forever and in my experience, the the, 50% was relatively new.

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David: Yeah.

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Gene Tavernetti: you know, to me, but the participation, allowing participation points, allowing homework points, was a way to, to try to motivate the students to have, you know, if they
weren't doing that great, then, you know, here's a chance for you to to be active in the class and participate and give me a chance as a teacher to kind of evaluate your work in a different way.

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And that was the motivation for that.

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Was there any way to, to eek that out?

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David: Yeah, I mean, so, so let me address what I think is kind of your question, which is like, what's going on here?

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What are the goals?

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Right?

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What

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Gene Tavernetti: you go.

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Yeah.

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David: right?

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I mean.

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Here's how I see it.

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Right?

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So part of the reason that the whole conversation is confusing is that grades actually address multiple challenges, or they serve multiple purposes, right?

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So one purpose that they pretty obviously serve is to motivate students.

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Right.

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You know, we, some students are intrinsically motivated, right?

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They'll come to class and they'll just do all this, the work for, 'cause they love learning, right?

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And they just love simultaneous equations.

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Please, teacher, you know, give me another plate full of simultaneous equations.

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I would submit that's actually a small group of students.

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I think many kids love learning.

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But I think most kids require some form of external motivation at least some of the time.

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So that's one purpose.

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Another purpose that grades serve.

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Is to communicate, right?

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It's partly to communicate with students about how they're doing.

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It's partly to communicate with parents about how their kids are doing.

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It is, you know, ultimately partly, you know, it's about sending signals to colleges and employers and yada, yada, yada.

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All this, you know, it is a way of communicating things and.

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These two purposes are they're distinct.

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They're not one and the same, right?

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If you want to get kids to, ah.

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Try their hardest in school.

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You know, sort of do the, make the most of the time, do the assignments.

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It makes a lot to assign points to sort of all these intermediate tasks that we all remember from school.

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Right?

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Here's a problem set.

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Do it tonight.

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Right?

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It's worth 10 points.

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Here's another one.

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It's Tuesday.

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Do it tonight.

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It's worth 10 points.

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I, you know, I'm obviously I'm sort of.

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Simplifying it, but we all remember, yeah, we all remember having work in school.

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That doesn't necessarily tell you whether the kid can do it.

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Right.

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And you know, you might have kids who do all the assignments and still just don't necessarily have the mastery that we're expecting.

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You might also have kids.

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Who don't do any of the assignments but actually understand it and can do it on a test, right?

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So it, the point being these are different things.

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And so I think in practice grades have typically been a mishmash, right?

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They have partly reflected how hard students try their ability to complete assignments in a timely manner.

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And then they have also partly reflected, how the kids are doing, how what they can do how good they are at math.

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And so, and I think this is frustrating to many people because if it's doing both of those things, then it's not really doing either of those things well.

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Right?

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It doesn't really tell us what the kids can do.

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And it doesn't really give us a clean read on their behavior or non-cognitive skills or whatever it is.

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And so I think that.

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I think for many grading reformers, and I don't want to paint with too broad a brush, but I think many of them are frustrated by the sort of fuzzy, murky signal that we get outta grades.

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What is a, you know, what is a parent supposed to make of a c plus?

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I don't know.

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Right.

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Does it mean the kid can do the stuff or not?

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Right?

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Like, you know, it doesn't really tell you what you need.

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So I think that has sort of motivated a lot of grading reforms.

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But here's the thing.

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We also need kids to try, right?

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And because they're kids, or maybe just because they're humans.

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They don't wake up every morning and say, well, I need to do well on the midterm, so I'm gonna pay attention today and I'm gonna do all my homework, right?

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This is just not how, you know, classroom management works.

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It's not how people work.

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And so it's not particularly helpful to teachers to sever the link between grades and I'll just say effort.

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Although I could also be talking about behavior participation, all these things that kind of go into making a classroom unwell, getting kids to actively engage in the mat with the material.

216
00:17:01,210 --> 00:17:03,640
Grades historically have helped with that.

217
00:17:03,890 --> 00:17:07,940
And so, I think I, so, so we have a tension here.

218
00:17:08,150 --> 00:17:10,970
And so kind of, um.

219
00:17:11,470 --> 00:17:15,910
In order in, in order to trying attempts to resolve this tension are running into problems.

220
00:17:16,120 --> 00:17:16,810
I'll leave it at that.

221
00:17:17,250 --> 00:17:17,670
Gene Tavernetti: Okay.

222
00:17:17,670 --> 00:17:32,990
Well, it is well, a couple things come to mind as you're talking and also as I was reading the article, especially the quotes from
the teachers and you alluded to it in your answer right now, the fact that teachers say, you're taking away my way to motivate kids.

223
00:17:34,020 --> 00:17:38,760
I, and I'm just thinking, you know, my experience of the kids that are getting zeros.

224
00:17:40,785 --> 00:17:50,655
Bring it on, teacher, gimme another zero, gimme, you know, I, I don't think the 50% changes their motivation as, and neither does the zero for those kids.

225
00:17:50,925 --> 00:18:03,845
That's just, you know, that's an anecdotal thing and I think teachers might be mistaken sometimes if that's the way that you're going to get to that kid, that is not putting in effort.

226
00:18:04,250 --> 00:18:04,540
Yeah.

227
00:18:05,085 --> 00:18:05,375
David: Yeah.

228
00:18:05,375 --> 00:18:06,120
You know, I don't.

229
00:18:07,010 --> 00:18:08,210
Totally disagree with you.

230
00:18:08,700 --> 00:18:18,220
I, you know, when I think back on my brief teacher teaching experience, and I don't wave the bloody flag very often because there are people who, excuse me, the bloody shirt there are people who have taught much longer than I have.

231
00:18:18,220 --> 00:18:19,420
I just wanna be on that.

232
00:18:19,510 --> 00:18:23,990
But I, you know, I do remember those kids who just didn.

233
00:18:24,455 --> 00:18:25,955
Seemed to be motivated by anything.

234
00:18:26,285 --> 00:18:26,705
Right.

235
00:18:27,255 --> 00:18:33,945
And you know, I even remember a kid who was doing all right in the course and then sort of.

236
00:18:34,610 --> 00:18:36,950
New teacher David, trying to figure things out.

237
00:18:37,100 --> 00:18:37,550
Right?

238
00:18:37,670 --> 00:18:43,640
I showed her grade and it turned out that she was failing because she had a big fat zero, right?

239
00:18:43,910 --> 00:18:54,270
And this ruined what was a, an all an a, a partially functional relationship with the kid because the kid just, you know, reacted negatively.

240
00:18:54,900 --> 00:18:57,330
Oh my gosh, Mr. Griffith, you're so unfair.

241
00:18:57,420 --> 00:18:57,810
You know?

242
00:18:57,870 --> 00:18:58,260
Right.

243
00:18:58,260 --> 00:19:00,930
Like it's, children are childish.

244
00:19:01,170 --> 00:19:01,710
Right.

245
00:19:01,810 --> 00:19:07,690
And so I, I'll just say I, there, I don't wanna take the position right.

246
00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:10,300
That none of this stuff is ever appropriate.

247
00:19:10,930 --> 00:19:13,120
I, because sometimes it is.

248
00:19:13,450 --> 00:19:13,780
Right?

249
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:19,830
It may be that there is a kid who wasn't doing so well but has started doing his or her work.

250
00:19:20,235 --> 00:19:32,695
And the teacher has this sort of fragile, nascent budding relationship and doesn't want to destroy it by pointing out that technically he or she would be failing if they put in all the zeros in the graded book.

251
00:19:32,815 --> 00:19:36,525
I, I have some sympathy for that 'cause I've been there.

252
00:19:36,865 --> 00:19:39,965
But I think there are at least two points that deserve to be made.

253
00:19:40,025 --> 00:19:40,805
First.

254
00:19:41,195 --> 00:19:43,475
It's one thing to do that.

255
00:19:44,255 --> 00:20:09,445
As a teacher using your professional judgment in a particular situation where it seems like the thing to do, it's another thing to mandate it at the school level or at
the district level, prospectively right before the semester has even started to say essentially, you know, we're gonna be giving fifties even if you don't do the work.

256
00:20:09,950 --> 00:20:17,800
That to me is very different from me discreetly deciding that perhaps I won't count this assignment for this child.

257
00:20:18,020 --> 00:20:21,540
That, you know, because it just seems like the thing to do in this situation.

258
00:20:21,700 --> 00:20:30,610
I, to me there's an enormous chasm between those, between a universal policy like that and you know, the sort of grace that teachers.

259
00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:34,230
Occasionally show to students when they think it makes sense.

260
00:20:34,230 --> 00:20:35,700
So that's the first point I would make.

261
00:20:36,480 --> 00:20:44,610
The second point I would make is, honestly, I'm agree, I'm agreeing with you, right, like that some kids are not motivated by zeros.

262
00:20:45,010 --> 00:20:46,540
Some are, right.

263
00:20:46,690 --> 00:20:50,620
And we, you know, we can't design our policies.

264
00:20:51,040 --> 00:20:53,700
You know, we, the goal cannot be.

265
00:20:54,485 --> 00:20:58,265
To try to say to to sacrifice every child, right?

266
00:20:58,385 --> 00:21:03,095
In an attempt to save, you know, a handful of very tough cases, right?

267
00:21:03,145 --> 00:21:05,725
Many kids are motivated by zeros.

268
00:21:06,235 --> 00:21:14,165
80% of our teachers said that the no zeros policy made, you know, was harmful to academic engagement.

269
00:21:14,560 --> 00:21:21,290
Which tells me that, you know, that they think that assigning points for assignments I is actually motivating the kids.

270
00:21:21,600 --> 00:21:38,450
So, yeah, there are a few kids that it's sort of irrelevant for, but I think for most kids and most teachers it is you know, it is deeply important to the process of learning that you know, that kids be given some incentive to do the work.

271
00:21:38,790 --> 00:21:43,510
And so I think it's really dangerous to sort of take away teachers' leverage on that front.

272
00:21:49,634 --> 00:21:53,055
Gene Tavernetti: Yeah, I mean, I, you get a 50, you still got some leverage.

273
00:21:53,265 --> 00:21:57,105
You still got some leverage if you're not getting any points for participation or anything else.

274
00:21:57,285 --> 00:22:09,101
But having said that, these policies that schools do, you know, you know, just like you said at the beginning, it's not because one day they said, let's do this let's give 50 instead of zero.

275
00:22:09,251 --> 00:22:12,431
There's been a whole bunch of things.

276
00:22:12,751 --> 00:22:20,981
Previous to making that decision, and I'm not supporting the decision, I'm just, you know, I think I'm agreeing with you.

277
00:22:20,981 --> 00:22:25,931
You can't take a blunt instrument when you need to work with individual kids.

278
00:22:27,331 --> 00:22:28,306
David: Yeah, I think.

279
00:22:28,966 --> 00:22:33,291
I mean, let me just pick up on, on that last point first I and build on what I was just saying.

280
00:22:33,321 --> 00:22:45,781
I mean, part of where I'm coming from, I maybe I'm wrong about this, but in my experience, the average teacher is a bleeding heart who will bend over backwards to try to help his or her students.

281
00:22:45,781 --> 00:22:47,341
There's just no other reason to do it.

282
00:22:47,761 --> 00:22:48,271
Right.

283
00:22:48,341 --> 00:22:50,491
I mean, it the job doesn't pay very well.

284
00:22:50,711 --> 00:22:53,141
You know, it's got long hours.

285
00:22:53,261 --> 00:22:56,471
I mean, there's no reason to do it except for the kids.

286
00:22:56,471 --> 00:23:07,001
And so I just don't you know, I, good intentions aren't everything, but I don't buy the notion that teachers are cruel or heartless or racist.

287
00:23:07,251 --> 00:23:11,781
You know, overlords who enjoy giving zeros to kids.

288
00:23:12,366 --> 00:23:14,046
They don't, right?

289
00:23:14,081 --> 00:23:19,901
I think teachers are looking for ways frankly, looking for ways to not fail kids, right?

290
00:23:19,901 --> 00:23:21,821
Because nobody wants to do it, right?

291
00:23:21,881 --> 00:23:27,491
And so they don't need universal policies that essentially make it impossible to fail kids.

292
00:23:27,491 --> 00:23:30,011
If anything, they need to be pushed in the opposite direction.

293
00:23:30,201 --> 00:23:32,991
And given a reason to be a little tougher maybe.

294
00:23:33,381 --> 00:23:35,631
But I, you know, I think, um.

295
00:23:36,131 --> 00:23:47,016
To go back to what you were saying earlier, I mean, I think that kids and teachers, um, are responding to incentives that problematic.

296
00:23:47,286 --> 00:23:47,646
Right.

297
00:23:47,646 --> 00:23:48,816
So you know, you Yeah.

298
00:23:48,981 --> 00:23:49,371
Gene Tavernetti: Yes.

299
00:23:49,371 --> 00:23:49,581
Yeah.

300
00:23:49,926 --> 00:23:54,316
David: You said, you know, you said these policies didn't come out of anywhere come outta nowhere, right?

301
00:23:54,376 --> 00:23:55,126
No, it's true.

302
00:23:55,156 --> 00:24:01,106
They didn't, we put high school graduation rates on school websites, right.

303
00:24:01,436 --> 00:24:05,096
Principals are, they're not evaluated based on them.

304
00:24:05,396 --> 00:24:05,846
Right.

305
00:24:05,846 --> 00:24:06,996
But they're human beings.

306
00:24:06,996 --> 00:24:08,796
They're sensitive to how things look.

307
00:24:09,276 --> 00:24:12,666
They're being judged based on how it goes.

308
00:24:12,946 --> 00:24:17,471
Parents don't like it when you give their kids low grades.

309
00:24:19,141 --> 00:24:19,561
Teach.

310
00:24:19,611 --> 00:24:23,631
Kids don't like it when you give them low grades.

311
00:24:23,941 --> 00:24:31,251
So there, I mean, there is no earthly reason to give a child a low grade except professional integrity, right?

312
00:24:31,461 --> 00:24:36,291
All of the incentives are pushing teachers you know, to pass the kid along.

313
00:24:37,371 --> 00:24:38,991
Sure have a B. Right.

314
00:24:39,021 --> 00:24:39,381
Okay.

315
00:24:39,381 --> 00:24:41,421
You're almost to an A, have an A. Right.

316
00:24:41,451 --> 00:24:46,341
That's every, you know, every actor in the system is pushing them in this direction.

317
00:24:46,581 --> 00:24:46,911
Right.

318
00:24:46,911 --> 00:24:56,406
And so, you know, it's I think part of, you know, I have sort of a cynical perspective on this, but I think that part of the reason that these policies have spread is that they solve a problem.

319
00:24:56,526 --> 00:24:58,716
In fact, they solve several people's problems.

320
00:24:58,956 --> 00:25:01,896
It is so much easier to adopt a policy.

321
00:25:02,196 --> 00:25:11,946
That will push all the kids into passing territory than it is to actually say, you know what, you're not in passing territory and we're gonna work really hard.

322
00:25:12,376 --> 00:25:16,886
So that you can actually earn that c. That's real work.

323
00:25:16,916 --> 00:25:18,586
It's actually very difficult.

324
00:25:18,916 --> 00:25:22,786
And you know, it's very difficult to actually make that kind of progress with kids.

325
00:25:22,786 --> 00:25:24,076
It's easier to paper it over.

326
00:25:24,886 --> 00:25:25,186
Gene Tavernetti: Yeah.

327
00:25:25,186 --> 00:25:34,186
You know, I, you know, I'm asking you these questions, but I. realize that this 50% thing was so pervasive.

328
00:25:34,746 --> 00:25:36,816
It doesn't make, it doesn't make any sense to me.

329
00:25:36,876 --> 00:25:44,196
On the other hand, thinking about another comment that, that teachers made, that we're not preparing kids for the real world,

330
00:25:45,181 --> 00:25:45,501
David: Yeah.

331
00:25:45,546 --> 00:25:46,446
Gene Tavernetti: where you don't get this?

332
00:25:46,566 --> 00:25:49,236
Well, I'm gonna call BS on some of that.

333
00:25:49,626 --> 00:25:50,136
Okay.

334
00:25:50,436 --> 00:25:55,656
You know, for example, if I'm getting zeros, let's say I'm in David's class.

335
00:25:56,156 --> 00:26:00,536
Mr. Griffis cloud, and I'm getting zeros, and you pull me over and you say, Jean, look at this.

336
00:26:00,536 --> 00:26:01,526
You got zeros.

337
00:26:02,306 --> 00:26:06,416
And boy, we're gonna need to do something.

338
00:26:06,716 --> 00:26:17,056
And then I take a look at the mathematics of what I would need to do to get B, C or a B, it becomes nearly impossible.

339
00:26:17,836 --> 00:26:19,636
So now in the real world.

340
00:26:20,446 --> 00:26:25,816
What happens is you get to go bankrupt and start over again.

341
00:26:26,056 --> 00:26:37,846
So if there was a way to go bankrupt in your classroom and say, okay, Mr. Griffith, I'm gonna, I'm changing, I'm a different person now that we've had this talk, you watch and I am a different person now what do we do?

342
00:26:37,846 --> 00:26:42,376
Because we've got this mathematical formula that we've been given.

343
00:26:44,106 --> 00:26:44,496
David: Yeah.

344
00:26:46,056 --> 00:26:53,736
Well, so I am against, I am generally against giving teachers mathematical formulas for precisely,

345
00:26:54,961 --> 00:26:55,261
Gene Tavernetti: Yeah.

346
00:26:56,136 --> 00:26:59,106
David: I don't have a good I don't have a good sense of how.

347
00:27:00,511 --> 00:27:09,831
You know how I'm not even quite sure what we're talking about, but I think, you know, I think it's fair to say that in some places, right, teachers have a lot of discretion over how their grade breaks down.

348
00:27:10,161 --> 00:27:10,611
Right?

349
00:27:10,671 --> 00:27:16,601
And in other places, you know, that is essentially something that is broken down for them.

350
00:27:16,931 --> 00:27:21,611
And in some cases it's even, you know, sort of tightly monitored and they're actually expected to follow the policy.

351
00:27:21,611 --> 00:27:35,731
I know that's not something we can assume in the education world, but, you know, I, I. I have learned that there are actually places where, you know, the policy that the school district puts forward is followed by the classroom teachers at the ground level.

352
00:27:35,761 --> 00:27:37,411
So it's not as crazy as it sounds.

353
00:27:37,771 --> 00:27:43,831
So I, you know, I had teachers when we asked them, said that they wanted some sort of schoolwide policy.

354
00:27:44,011 --> 00:27:47,461
It didn't, we didn't really have the bandwidth to ask them what they meant by that.

355
00:27:47,671 --> 00:27:55,551
So I do think that there is, I think there's some desire for some ground rules about how kids are graded.

356
00:27:55,761 --> 00:27:58,971
But I guess I'll just say my, you know, I'm putting my cards on the table here.

357
00:27:59,011 --> 00:28:00,541
I take the opposite view.

358
00:28:00,541 --> 00:28:05,131
I'm of the view that we should maximize teacher discretion when it comes to grades.

359
00:28:05,451 --> 00:28:06,126
I think grades.

360
00:28:07,146 --> 00:28:11,286
Are primarily actually motivational tools when it push comes right down to it.

361
00:28:11,576 --> 00:28:19,191
I think the notion that a C or a B denotes something objective about a kid's.

362
00:28:19,931 --> 00:28:23,051
You know, level is just absurd,

363
00:28:23,281 --> 00:28:23,631
Gene Tavernetti: right?

364
00:28:23,701 --> 00:28:23,991
Okay.

365
00:28:24,311 --> 00:28:34,641
David: Stuyvesant or, you know, you know, that, that high school on the, you know, across the tracks, it's just absurd to think that there's some objective standard that we can impose on all.

366
00:28:35,001 --> 00:28:44,641
Classrooms on all subjects across the country so that, you know, a C really means a C or an A is really an A. No it's inherently subjective, right?

367
00:28:44,701 --> 00:28:46,831
Grades are not particularly fair.

368
00:28:47,011 --> 00:28:52,091
Even if we could make them fair within a school, it still means something completely different at the school down the road.

369
00:28:52,751 --> 00:28:57,521
Even if we did that at the district level, they'd still mean something completely different at the next district over.

370
00:28:57,641 --> 00:29:02,261
Even if we did it at the state level, they'd still mean something different at the, in the next state over.

371
00:29:02,351 --> 00:29:04,931
And you're all, by the way, you're all trying to get into Brown.

372
00:29:05,201 --> 00:29:05,681
Right?

373
00:29:05,741 --> 00:29:07,361
Like it's not fair.

374
00:29:07,571 --> 00:29:07,931
Right.

375
00:29:07,931 --> 00:29:09,731
They are not gonna be perfectly fair.

376
00:29:10,021 --> 00:29:13,916
And I find the I also find the impulse to standardize them.

377
00:29:14,366 --> 00:29:16,646
Just kind of astonishing.

378
00:29:17,006 --> 00:29:17,666
Because.

379
00:29:18,256 --> 00:29:25,861
One class is about math and another class is about social studies, and another class is about pottery.

380
00:29:26,866 --> 00:29:34,636
And making a plot is not the same thing as writing a five paragraph essay, which is not the same thing as learning about fractions.

381
00:29:34,666 --> 00:29:39,886
So why on earth would we think that tests should count for the same percentage in all these things?

382
00:29:39,886 --> 00:29:42,736
And oh, by the way, there are different grade levels, right?

383
00:29:42,736 --> 00:29:45,736
And oh, by the way, the kids are at different levels, right?

384
00:29:45,736 --> 00:29:47,866
And oh, by the way, every classroom is different.

385
00:29:47,866 --> 00:29:48,741
Every kid is different.

386
00:29:48,826 --> 00:29:50,216
Why is it, why do we have.

387
00:29:50,721 --> 00:29:51,756
You know, I'm a Democrat.

388
00:29:51,756 --> 00:29:52,866
I'll put my cards on the table.

389
00:29:52,866 --> 00:30:03,556
I care a lot about equity, but this obsession with fairness for something that is clearly not going to be entirely fair is a little bit silly, right?

390
00:30:04,276 --> 00:30:08,176
It I'm evaluated in my, you know, in my work as are most of us.

391
00:30:08,506 --> 00:30:11,416
I accept that, that evaluation is a little bit subjective.

392
00:30:12,116 --> 00:30:14,066
And not perfectly fair.

393
00:30:14,066 --> 00:30:19,156
I don't know if I'm getting screwed or you know, or if I'm getting an easy ride, right?

394
00:30:19,336 --> 00:30:26,656
But either way, I, there's no expectation that the thing will be perfectly, absolutely fair because nothing is perfectly, absolutely fair.

395
00:30:26,906 --> 00:30:33,776
And so I, I guess I just think we need to be a little bit more pragmatic about how we approach this.

396
00:30:34,106 --> 00:30:35,966
The grades will not be perfectly fair.

397
00:30:36,246 --> 00:30:38,336
They can be an important.

398
00:30:38,756 --> 00:30:49,706
Way in which we convince students to do the things that we think they need to do, so that they become, you know, fully formed people who know something about the world.

399
00:30:51,331 --> 00:30:52,471
Gene Tavernetti: Well, two, two things.

400
00:30:52,471 --> 00:30:54,801
I wanna share an anecdote with you about the

401
00:30:54,801 --> 00:30:59,151
whole idea of, percentages, and you know how we calculate grades.

402
00:30:59,691 --> 00:31:05,871
I was working at a, I was working at a middle school and it was the end of the day and I was debriefing with the principal and he said, I'm sorry.

403
00:31:05,871 --> 00:31:06,711
I have to go.

404
00:31:06,891 --> 00:31:08,661
I have to go to an expulsion hearing.

405
00:31:09,951 --> 00:31:11,331
And I said, oh my goodness.

406
00:31:11,331 --> 00:31:14,181
What, you know, what happened?

407
00:31:14,181 --> 00:31:14,661
What's up with?

408
00:31:14,661 --> 00:31:20,101
The kid says, well, he's splunking out, and I, he's splunking out.

409
00:31:20,101 --> 00:31:21,481
I said, well, what, what's going on?

410
00:31:22,231 --> 00:31:23,611
He says, well, he doesn't do his homework.

411
00:31:25,096 --> 00:31:26,146
I said, okay.

412
00:31:26,656 --> 00:31:27,886
How's his, how are his tests?

413
00:31:27,946 --> 00:31:29,116
Oh, he does great on tests.

414
00:31:30,076 --> 00:31:31,396
How are his state assessments?

415
00:31:31,426 --> 00:31:44,606
Oh, he is proficient in everything he says, but in this school, the teachers expect me to enforce the fact that homework can be a determinant factor in whether you pass or not.

416
00:31:45,481 --> 00:31:47,731
And the kid just decided not to do homework.

417
00:31:48,181 --> 00:31:50,521
So I'm thinking, wow, really?

418
00:31:50,551 --> 00:31:56,261
You're gonna, you're gonna expel a kid, you're gonna send him to a continuation school or a community school because of that.

419
00:31:56,381 --> 00:32:07,101
Which I think just reinforces your argument about when you have these strict percentages, it makes it pretty difficult to have some discretion.

420
00:32:07,761 --> 00:32:09,621
David: Yeah, that's a pretty interesting anecdote.

421
00:32:09,681 --> 00:32:11,891
I mean, let me take it in a slightly different direction.

422
00:32:11,921 --> 00:32:16,921
I think I think flunking which has unique consequences.

423
00:32:17,581 --> 00:32:19,951
At the high school level is kind of a special case.

424
00:32:20,291 --> 00:32:27,901
I'm actually sort of dovish when it comes to things like holding kids back a grade 'cause they're not on grade level, right?

425
00:32:28,061 --> 00:32:30,941
I tend to think social promotion is inevitable.

426
00:32:31,286 --> 00:32:31,706
Right.

427
00:32:31,906 --> 00:32:36,646
And yeah, when you get to the high school level, the kids, you know, they have to take more responsibility.

428
00:32:36,916 --> 00:32:37,246
Right.

429
00:32:37,246 --> 00:32:39,821
But basically you know, I get it right.

430
00:32:39,821 --> 00:32:45,821
Like we, I don't think we gained very much by flunking kids outta high school and putting 'em on the street.

431
00:32:46,191 --> 00:32:51,841
I would rather have them at least be inside a building where adults are supervising them and trying to work with them.

432
00:32:52,201 --> 00:32:58,151
And I don't, you know, I don't lose too much sleep about, you know, the value of a d not being what it used to be.

433
00:32:58,181 --> 00:32:58,511
Right?

434
00:32:58,511 --> 00:33:00,011
Like, we all know what a d means.

435
00:33:00,011 --> 00:33:00,521
A D means.

436
00:33:00,521 --> 00:33:01,331
I didn't want flunk you.

437
00:33:01,811 --> 00:33:02,291
Right.

438
00:33:02,421 --> 00:33:04,341
I think there's some wisdom in that.

439
00:33:04,531 --> 00:33:08,281
I think what the problem is that what has really happened in the last few years?

440
00:33:08,641 --> 00:33:16,541
Is that the grading scale has gotten so compressed that we're now giving a's to like, you know, we hear stories from teachers, right?

441
00:33:16,631 --> 00:33:22,661
Where it's like half the kids are getting A's and the other half are getting B'S and we're not even making use of the C's and the D's.

442
00:33:22,961 --> 00:33:23,441
Right?

443
00:33:23,651 --> 00:33:31,531
And you know, it's not, again, it's not written in the sky what should be an A or how many kids deserve an A. But parents have some sense.

444
00:33:32,536 --> 00:33:35,276
Of what an A means, or at least they thought they knew.

445
00:33:35,426 --> 00:33:35,786
Right?

446
00:33:35,786 --> 00:33:42,276
And so if kids if kids are getting A's right, parents aren't gonna give 'em a hard time, right?

447
00:33:42,366 --> 00:33:49,996
And if all the kids are getting A's, then, you know, then none of the parents are really gonna be, you know, sort of, on their case.

448
00:33:50,126 --> 00:33:55,406
And if it's too easy to get an A you know, then essentially it, you know, you just, you're not pushing kids anymore.

449
00:33:55,861 --> 00:34:06,751
And so I, I'm not actually taking the view that, you know, kids should be, like, the kids that we've talked about, the kids who just aren't doing the work should necessarily be flunked.

450
00:34:07,111 --> 00:34:08,701
Or I'll even throw one more thing out there.

451
00:34:08,701 --> 00:34:13,611
I'd actually think we should, maybe we should flunk 'em, but we just, you know, shouldn't kick 'em outta school anymore, right?

452
00:34:13,611 --> 00:34:17,901
We should find some way to just give 'em an f and just, I don't know, let him move on or something.

453
00:34:18,171 --> 00:34:20,641
I, either way, I don't think that it's important.

454
00:34:20,936 --> 00:34:31,576
To hold kids back if they're below grade level or you know, to just sort of insist that they repeat a course if there is, if it's obvious that's not in the best interest of a kid.

455
00:34:31,816 --> 00:34:37,631
What I do think is important is that we do what we can to maintain grading standards you know.

456
00:34:38,821 --> 00:34:40,411
Make it possible to get a C.

457
00:34:40,771 --> 00:34:41,311
Right?

458
00:34:41,896 --> 00:34:45,316
And even more than that, even more than being against great inflation.

459
00:34:45,316 --> 00:34:52,416
What I'm really against is this effort to just undercut teachers' leverage at every possible point.

460
00:34:52,836 --> 00:34:55,236
Some teachers use homework, some don't.

461
00:34:55,736 --> 00:35:02,586
Mrs. Johnson might not be able to get Tim to do his homework, but, you know, right down the hall, Mr. Smith might be able to get him to do it.

462
00:35:02,616 --> 00:35:03,036
Right.

463
00:35:03,186 --> 00:35:04,056
I had kids like that.

464
00:35:04,056 --> 00:35:08,586
I had kids that I struggled with and you know, other teachers were like, what do you mean she's great?

465
00:35:08,856 --> 00:35:09,366
Right?

466
00:35:09,486 --> 00:35:11,976
E education's a very personal thing.

467
00:35:12,186 --> 00:35:15,516
Some teachers are very gifted at getting the most out of their kids.

468
00:35:15,516 --> 00:35:18,471
They can get them to do things that other teachers cannot.

469
00:35:18,701 --> 00:35:20,111
And so we shouldn't.

470
00:35:20,636 --> 00:35:22,526
We shouldn't undermine that, right?

471
00:35:22,526 --> 00:35:32,216
We should let teachers craft an approach to grading that suits their personal style, that suits their subject, that suits their their students, right?

472
00:35:32,216 --> 00:35:33,626
And that suits their situation.

473
00:35:33,906 --> 00:35:47,306
And we shouldn't worry too much if it looks exactly the same as the, you know, the approach that a teacher down the hall constructs because there may be very good reasons that the teacher down the hall has designed a different approach.

474
00:35:48,311 --> 00:35:50,951
Gene Tavernetti: I know you're just reporting data, David.

475
00:35:51,551 --> 00:35:51,851
David: Right.

476
00:35:51,851 --> 00:35:52,241
That's right.

477
00:35:52,241 --> 00:35:53,621
You can tell I have no opinions.

478
00:35:53,681 --> 00:35:57,106
I'm one of those boring, neutral researchers that you've heard

479
00:35:57,151 --> 00:35:57,361
Gene Tavernetti: Right.

480
00:35:57,751 --> 00:36:07,531
But I, you know, there are interesting, this whole conversation is so interesting to me and you started with the statement that grading is central to schools.

481
00:36:07,836 --> 00:36:08,056
David: Yes.

482
00:36:09,001 --> 00:36:11,371
Gene Tavernetti: And then, you know, I talked to, uh.

483
00:36:11,921 --> 00:36:24,991
You'll have to go back and listen to all my podcasts, David, but I did talk to a teacher from the UK who came over here and started teaching and one of the biggest culture shocks was, wait a second, I have to give all these grades.

484
00:36:26,221 --> 00:36:27,991
I don't care what they know now.

485
00:36:28,021 --> 00:36:33,271
I, at the end of the semester, they need to know, or the end of the year, that's when everything counts.

486
00:36:34,191 --> 00:36:34,621
David: Yeah.

487
00:36:35,041 --> 00:36:37,231
Gene Tavernetti: and so she was just making upgrades.

488
00:36:37,231 --> 00:36:43,496
I don't want to say that's, that might be a little hyperbolic, but for her, it wasn't meaningful at all.

489
00:36:44,851 --> 00:36:47,731
Sh her job was to get the kids to learn.

490
00:36:47,931 --> 00:36:52,671
And if David wasn't motivated, you know, she was gonna work on it,

491
00:36:53,001 --> 00:37:02,951
you know, or, but so I don't know the fact that we've been talking about this for so many decades and then we go to standards based and, you know.

492
00:37:03,356 --> 00:37:12,146
Well at this classroom and Mr. Griffith's class, I had have got an A, but I'm not in, you know, I'm in Miss Jones class, so I parents don't like that so much.

493
00:37:12,146 --> 00:37:14,486
Is parent driven as well?

494
00:37:14,906 --> 00:37:16,856
So I, I don't know the answer.

495
00:37:17,096 --> 00:37:18,866
As I've gotten older, that's what I know.

496
00:37:18,866 --> 00:37:20,786
I just know that there's so much I don't know.

497
00:37:21,206 --> 00:37:28,436
But this is one that do we spend too much energy on it.

498
00:37:28,936 --> 00:37:31,456
I wanna know, David's not doing well.

499
00:37:31,456 --> 00:37:35,886
I wanna go sit in, I wanna go sit in Mr. Griffith's classroom to see what's happening.

500
00:37:36,036 --> 00:37:39,546
If I'm an administrator, I don't wanna say, Hey, give him a c.

501
00:37:40,086 --> 00:37:51,526
That's, so that's what I get concerned about, is that people worry about the minutia, especially in this time of, you know, school choice and you know, I don't know.

502
00:37:51,616 --> 00:37:55,336
I don't know if that's one of the things they look for is, oh, is everybody getting good grades?

503
00:37:55,336 --> 00:37:57,166
Or what happens to the kids?

504
00:37:57,166 --> 00:37:57,886
Are they learning?

505
00:37:58,486 --> 00:37:59,506
So I just don't know.

506
00:38:00,536 --> 00:38:07,931
David: Yeah, I, you know, I have the dim sense that if, as an education researcher, that we could learn a lot from other countries.

507
00:38:09,031 --> 00:38:17,701
If you would just give me, you know, an infinite budget in a thousand years to travel around and try to understand how things work, because it's fascinating, right?

508
00:38:17,881 --> 00:38:20,731
You go to other places and things that you take for granted.

509
00:38:21,011 --> 00:38:22,091
Are not the case.

510
00:38:22,271 --> 00:38:24,341
So I'll hit you back with an anecdote of my own.

511
00:38:24,401 --> 00:38:29,111
I also, I spent a year in England when I was in fifth grade.

512
00:38:29,571 --> 00:38:34,661
And I attended an English, it, it wasn't a boarding school, although there were children at it who boarded.

513
00:38:34,661 --> 00:38:36,811
So it was partly boarding, partly day day school.

514
00:38:36,841 --> 00:38:37,261
Right.

515
00:38:37,741 --> 00:38:41,241
And it was fifth grade and they had grades, right?

516
00:38:41,241 --> 00:38:42,441
So they did letter grades.

517
00:38:42,966 --> 00:38:46,656
Not only did they have letter grades, this was in the nineties I guess I should say.

518
00:38:46,686 --> 00:39:06,106
Alright, so I don't know that they still do this, but I remember quite distinctly at the end of the semester, they would read the ranks of the children out loud to the class and your class rank to a classroom full of fifth graders, number 32.

519
00:39:06,691 --> 00:39:09,211
Timmy, number 31, Gina.

520
00:39:09,631 --> 00:39:14,221
It, I mean, it's inconceivable by Modern American standards, right?

521
00:39:14,221 --> 00:39:16,801
And I'm not advocating for it, right?

522
00:39:16,861 --> 00:39:21,271
To be clear, but I guess I just do take the view, right?

523
00:39:21,271 --> 00:39:26,281
I mean it, there, there are, there, there are.

524
00:39:26,341 --> 00:39:35,161
When I think about that practice relative to what we're talking about now, where you know, it somehow, it's cruel to give a kid a zero.

525
00:39:35,716 --> 00:39:37,216
When they didn't do the work.

526
00:39:37,736 --> 00:39:39,926
I guess I just, I push back on that, right.

527
00:39:39,926 --> 00:39:45,621
I think at some point you, you have to you know, you have to be real with the kid, right?

528
00:39:45,621 --> 00:39:47,961
And so it's all relative is what I'm trying to say.

529
00:39:47,961 --> 00:39:56,376
I think, you know, we are we're not trying to get kids to to fail, but we are trying to get them to learn something about how the world works.

530
00:39:56,536 --> 00:39:59,861
And it's if we shelter them from it forever, they're not gonna learn.

531
00:40:01,256 --> 00:40:01,556
Gene Tavernetti: Yeah.

532
00:40:01,616 --> 00:40:10,196
And I, like I say, I think we're back and forth some kind of Hegelian dialectic here where, you know, we're not gonna do what you did in England, but we don't need to give 'em 50%.

533
00:40:10,856 --> 00:40:12,356
But I think that's what's happening.

534
00:40:12,356 --> 00:40:14,456
And then they'll figure that's not a good idea.

535
00:40:14,456 --> 00:40:16,196
50% is not a good idea.

536
00:40:16,566 --> 00:40:19,081
I don't, I, again, I don't know the answers.

537
00:40:19,081 --> 00:40:22,276
I I don't know the answers to this, but that's it.

538
00:40:22,276 --> 00:40:23,476
I just don't, I just don't know.

539
00:40:23,536 --> 00:40:25,546
That's why I was looking forward to talking to you.

540
00:40:26,976 --> 00:40:31,986
David: Well, I think my my, just my personal takeaway is that we need to.

541
00:40:33,511 --> 00:40:41,881
Give teachers and educators some professional respect and trust them to, you know, to do the right thing by kids.

542
00:40:41,941 --> 00:40:48,171
And to grade in a way that will promote learning and not try to micromanage them in ways that could be counterproductive.

543
00:40:48,171 --> 00:40:49,161
That's my bottom line.

544
00:40:50,751 --> 00:40:52,611
Gene Tavernetti: You, you have any questions for me, David?

545
00:40:53,806 --> 00:40:54,096
David: Well.

546
00:40:54,596 --> 00:40:55,556
I have one question.

547
00:40:55,556 --> 00:41:09,736
We've been talking, we've been talking so much about you know, grade inflation and all these things that we didn't even really get to how it's
been come out of the pandemic, but, you know, I would ask you, you know, my question is basically how would you solve grade inflation, right?

548
00:41:09,736 --> 00:41:13,606
Because we have talked about these policies that are driving it.

549
00:41:14,056 --> 00:41:16,546
But the truth is that even if we got rid of them.

550
00:41:17,236 --> 00:41:20,896
We would still have a real problem with grading standards.

551
00:41:21,106 --> 00:41:21,556
Right.

552
00:41:21,616 --> 00:41:30,756
And I'll confess, I don't have a great solution to that because there are just so many forces that are working against really holding kids to a high standard.

553
00:41:30,756 --> 00:41:32,706
So I guess that's my question for you.

554
00:41:32,856 --> 00:41:33,336
Right.

555
00:41:33,436 --> 00:41:35,416
How do you think, is it even a solvable problem?

556
00:41:36,025 --> 00:41:38,725
Gene Tavernetti: you know, I do not have any solution.

557
00:41:38,725 --> 00:41:53,585
I think that there are some, there may be some, I don't wanna say instructional strategies, maybe some structures that, that maybe we can follow progress using technology.

558
00:41:54,580 --> 00:42:03,610
I'm kind of stumbling getting going here but using some technology that we, I can track David from the beginning of the year through the end of the year.

559
00:42:04,585 --> 00:42:08,965
You know, to see progress, to see, you know, is there gonna be a grade at the end?

560
00:42:09,195 --> 00:42:09,975
I don't know.

561
00:42:10,515 --> 00:42:17,685
Do we even do the grade level standards, you know, or what we expect proficient at a certain grade level.

562
00:42:17,685 --> 00:42:19,335
Does that even make sense?

563
00:42:19,785 --> 00:42:28,140
I mean, I don't know, my focus for the last 20 years and until I'm done, will, is gonna be on instruction.

564
00:42:29,430 --> 00:42:49,625
I wanna be sure that there's quality instruction going on in a classroom now that takes out that variable so that if I'm, if my kid's
in Ms. Jones class and he's not performing well, I wanna be sure that Ms. Jones is at least as competent as Mr. Griffith next door.

565
00:42:51,155 --> 00:42:55,145
Then I'm gonna be a little bit, I'm gonna feel a little bit better.

566
00:42:55,625 --> 00:43:10,560
So I think that's the baseline of everything is that we have to have a baseline quality of instruction to even talk about what the performance is gonna be of a kid in that classroom.

567
00:43:11,961 --> 00:43:14,181
So paraphrase, I don't know.

568
00:43:14,331 --> 00:43:15,141
I don't know what to do.

569
00:43:16,491 --> 00:43:16,971
David: Yeah.

570
00:43:17,211 --> 00:43:18,831
Well, I think I think it's a tough one.

571
00:43:19,671 --> 00:43:20,421
Gene Tavernetti: You got it.

572
00:43:20,511 --> 00:43:25,131
Hey, David, it has been a pleasure meeting you and hopefully we'll run into each other again.

573
00:43:26,226 --> 00:43:27,336
David: I look forward to that.

574
00:43:27,366 --> 00:43:28,386
Thanks so much for having me, Jean.

575
00:43:31,184 --> 00:43:33,824
Gene Tavernetti: If you're enjoying these podcasts, tell a friend.

576
00:43:34,124 --> 00:43:39,694
Also, please leave a 5 star rating on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

577
00:43:40,384 --> 00:43:50,464
You can follow me on BlueSky at gTabernetti, on Twitter, x at gTabernetti, and you can learn more about me and the work I do at my website, BlueSky.

578
00:43:50,874 --> 00:43:51,304
Tesscg.

579
00:43:52,294 --> 00:44:07,664
com, that's T E S S C G dot com, where you will also find information about ordering my books, Teach Fast, Focus Adaptable Structure Teaching, and Maximizing the Impact of Coaching Cycles.