How I Implemented Asao B. Inoue’s Labor-Based Grading and Other Antiracist Assessment Strategies

Abstract:In response to Inoue’s data, I see two important implications. First, Inoue’s antiracist assessment initiatives, specifically in this case labor-based grading, improve learning for all students. Adopting a labor-based grading system decreased failure rates for all racial demographics. Second, antiracist assessment initiatives reduce but do not eliminate outcome differences between White and non-White students.2 As Inoue notes, antiracist approaches to pedagogy and assessment offered are not sufficient to eradicate the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities in our students lives; the divergent experiences with SEAE (Standard Edited American English) or DAD (Dominant Academic Discourses); and the divergent support, comfort, and treatment students have received from a structurally White education system. These issues offer us starting points for dismantling an assessment system that continually produces these structurally racist outcomes.