No-zero grading lets no-show students graduate: 'Just crazy'

Absenteeism soared during the pandemic, while graduation rates climbed, reports the American Enterprise Institute. Thanks to lenient grading policies, students can "learn less and still graduate."

In Chicago, where fewer students are showing up and more are earning diplomas, some high schools are abandoning no-zero grading, report Mila Koumpilova and Sarah Karp on Chalkbeat.

At Richards Career Academy High School, which primarily enrolls Hispanic and black students from low-income families, "grading for equity" was introduced in 2019 to help ninth graders pass courses. "Students could redo assignments repeatedly and turn in work late. Even if they didn’t complete the assignment, the lowest score they could get was 50 rather than zero — a concept known as no-zero grading," they write. When the pandemic closed schools, leniency spread to all classes.

No-zero grading is supposed to encourage students to keep trying after a missed assignment, but teachers say students can pass with little effort, and without learning the importance of showing up and doing the work. They worry they won't be prepared for college or the workforce.

Kayla Saffold is graduating from Richards this year. She thinks no-zero grading is "just crazy." She saw "kids just coming in, like, twice a week and doing two assignments and then passing the class. . . . It felt like I had to put in the effort to get the A, and someone else ends up barely putting in any effort at all, and ended up passing the class."

Richards' teachers pushed for a return to traditional grading this year. Attendance improved slightly. Students earned more D's and F's -- and more A's and B's.

Farragut High School also moved away from no-zero grading this fall, report Koumpilova and Karp. Principal Virag Nanavati "in part credits a firmer hand with grading and higher student expectations for dramatic improvements in attendance and the portion of students who are on track" for graduation.

Chicago Public Schools is attuned to students' social-emotional needs, Zakieh Mohammed, the district's senior manager of attendance and truancy, told Chalkbeat. “We’re not issuing grades without knowing the full story. If the student has not shown up, are we just issuing a zero, or are we asking why?”

"Megan Hougard, the district’s chief of college and career success, said the onus is now on teachers and individual schools to make sure students get any missed learning done — and pass their classes," report Koumpilova and Karp. “We really have doubled down on how you ensure students do not fail that class by ensuring that they have to recover that learning,” says Hougard.

And if they don't? They'll be passed along, collect a worthless diploma and discover they lack the academic skills and work habits to succeed on the job or in a community college class. To quote the girl who worked for her diploma: "Just crazy."

Illinois is planning to lower cut scores for proficiency on state tests and stop using students' test scores as a factor in evaluating teachers.

San Francisco Superintendent Maria Su will launch "grading for equity" at 14 high schools this fall, reports John Trasvina in The Voice of San Francisco. Under the plan, a student’s final semester grade won't reflect attendance, completing assignments or weekly tests. "All that matters is how the student scores on a final examination, which can be taken multiple times." The consultant recommends that "a student with a score as low as 80 can attain an A and as low as 21 can pass with a D."  

Update: San Francisco Unified has backed down on "equity grading," after a "wave of online criticism — including from Silicon Valley Rep. Ro Khanna, Mayor Daniel Lurie, and many parents, who argued that the district is deprioritizing academic rigor," reports Han Li in the San Francisco Standard.

“My immigrant dad asked me where the missing 10% went when I scored a 90,” Khanna tweeted. He said giving A’s to more students “is not equity — it betrays the American Dream and every parent who wants more for their kids.”