Grading at Gompers Passes Anti-Bias Test

A study of Gompers Secondary School’s prestigious math-science-computer magnet program shows that teachers exhibit no racial bias when giving grades to white and minority students attending the program.

The study was requested in June by San Diego Unified School District trustee Larry Lester after an evaluation of Gompers showed an unexpected number of failing and near-failing grades for students in the magnet school’s program. Lester said a school official implied during a school board presentation that the grades were being awarded unfairly based on race.

But the study indicates that grades earned by both white and minority students in the math, science and computer courses consistently coincided with their performances on the standardized Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills.

Grade Consistency in Both Tests

Students of all races who performed well on the standardized test tended to receive high grades in school, the study shows. Students who did poorly on the standardized test tended to earn low grades.

“If you saw low grades for minority students with high (test scores) but high grades for majority students, then you would want to investigate bias,” said Betty Tomblin, assistant director of evaluation for the city schools. “But we’re not seeing that.”

The study also showed no bias in the grades given to male and female students.

“The thing that I was concerned about was a seeming implication that grades were being awarded on an unfair basis,” Lester said. “I just wanted to establish whether that was happening.”

He also said that he wanted to “head off any pressure on teachers to lower their standards” by making it easier for minority students to attain higher grades. The results prove that such a policy should not be pursued, he said.

Susan Popovich, field representative for the San Diego Teachers Assn., called the report a “vote of confidence” for Gompers teachers.

“I think it is a vote of confidence if they’re saying, ‘We’ve looked over the grading system . . . and what we’ve found is what teachers have been saying all along,’ ” she said.

Leonard Kidd, operations manager for the section of the school district that includes Gompers, also endorsed the study’s conclusions.

In June, black parents of students from the Southeast San Diego neighborhood where Gompers is located raised questions to a U.S. Department of Justice official about whether teachers at the school were flunking minority students at a higher rate than white students, though they were unsure of the validity of the statistics they offered as proof.

Under Fire From Minority Parents

The school district has come under fire from minority parents because Gompers--converted into a “school within a school” magnet program in 1978 to promote integration--has become resegregated in many classes. Neighborhood children, most of whom are minorities, are vastly under represented in the advanced courses that have given the school a reputation for excellence.

The study on grades, completed July 25, compared only grades earned by minority and majority students attending the seventh- through 12th-grade magnet program at Gompers. It did not include grades earned by students in Gompers’ other program--a standard seventh- and eighth-grade junior high school attended by students from the Gompers neighborhood.