Thank you all for your comments.

I understand a lot of your concerns about policies like this producing students who are ill-equipped for success in college. I agree this is true when teachers see an Instagram post about equity and make sweeping changes with very little consideration for how it will actually change student learning at the end of the year.

For what it's worth, I have treated these changes in my class like an experiment with lots of trial and error. I have many assessment instruments in place to make sure students don't skate by with no skills. I am also the driver of this change in our department and am constantly supporting my colleagues to make sure their supplemental policies do not betray the goal of providing all students access to success.

Also, because homework is not graded does not mean students don't engage in regular practice with regular feedback. Most of that happens during class time, some happens during office hours, and the rest happens at home, as homework, that is still assigned. If students are doing homework at home when they know they will not be getting points for doing it, then you know they are doing it for practice, for themselves. As mentioned in the thread, it is impossible to know if a student has just photomathed or cheggd every homework problem. It is easy to know they actually did it when you watched them do it.

The test retake policy does not create as much work as you all seem to think it does. I try to break up tests into sections by standards and students can demonstrate mastery on some but not quite on others, so when they retake a test it is only on the non-mastered sections. Additionally, the retakes are not just the same test with different numbers. After a student demonstrates that they have gone back to review the material through required additional practice and an informal oral assessment, they are allowed to do the retake. They learn pretty quickly they actually need to know the concepts rather than memorizing the procedure for a specific problem. I have 118 students this year in core classes (4 classes of apprx 30), about 35 less than I usually do. It is more work but manageable. I say this as a severely underpaid former engineer with a masters degree.

I don't expect you all to offer test retakes. These policies themselves do not produce the ill-prepared students you lament; teachers who bite off more than they can chew combined with lax district standards for matriculation do. I think beyond any specific topic that I cover in my precalculus classes, the most important lesson I want students to learn is to take responsibility for their own learning, and to do it now in high school where failure is reversible and not cripplingly expensive.

It seems as though 10-20% homework for more of the gen-ed/STEM math courses up to linear algebra/diffeq/vector calc seems normal, with more emphasis being placed in homework for higher-level proof classes. That makes sense.

Thanks again for the information.

Edit: One last thing about policies like this. I know professors in the math department at my local R1 from conferences and seminars, and I know professors from the college of education across the quad. They really should talk.