Teachers are skeptical of 'equitable' grading: 'Students sink to lower expectations'

Grades should be based on students' knowledge and skills, with no rewards for classroom participation or completing homework on time, say "equity" advocates. Students should get partial credit for uncompleted assignments and unlimited retakes of tests and quizzes.

Teachers are "skeptical" about“grading for equity,” concludes a Fordham report, which relied on a RAND survey of teachers nationwide. "Turns out, teachers don’t like it when the powers that be take a sledgehammer to their few sources of leverage over student motivation and effort," writes Fordham's Michael Petrilli. "Nor do they like giving students grades they don’t deserve."

Nearly three-quarters of "majority minority" middle schools have adopted a "no zeros" policy. Teachers can't give a zero for an assignment, even if the student never turned it in. Nearly half don't give points for classroom participation.

“Grade inflation is pervasive. It's almost impossible to fail. A’s are passed out like Halloween candy. Whether a student learned anything is nearly irrelevant.” -- teacher

The strongest argument for these reforms is that grades should reward achievement rather than effort and diligence, writes Petrilli. Allowing retakes of tests and rewrites of assignments lets students demonstrate mastery, eventually.

The problem is that students who don't do the work usually don't achieve mastery.

These reforms “tend to reduce expectations and accountability for students, hamstring teachers’ ability to manage their classrooms and motivate students, and confuse parents and other stakeholders who do not understand what grades have come to signify,” wrote Adam Tyner and Meredith Coffey in a Fordham policy brief last year.

The weakest argument is that the way to closing racial achievement gaps requires "shooting the messenger," writes Petrilli. According to "anti-racism" scholar Ibram X. Kendi's reasoning, "any racial disparity — such as the fact that the average Black student’s GPA is nearly half a point lower than the average White student’s — is a sign of racism. Therefore, something must be wrong with the grades."

There's nothing "anti-racist" about the "soft bigotry of low expectations, he writes. It's setting kids up to fail in the real world.

One in four students are chronically absent, he notes. If there's "no reward for participation or penalty for late work," it sends a message that showing up isn't all that important. Doing the work isn't important.

Teachers on the panel complained about pressure from administrators to inflate grades and pass every student. Parents and students expect high grades for little effort. "There has to be accountability," said one teacher. "At this particular moment there is not."

"If districts and states truly want to provide their students a rigorous public education, they must deemphasize graduation and course-passing rates and emphasize external measures of academic success, such as end-of-course exams," the report suggests. As one high school teacher said, "There are many seniors that have failed a class that somehow graduate on time."