Dive Brief:
- As school districts rethink their grading policies, some have prohibited zeros on assignments, instead leaving 50 as the lowest grade, or tried to separate academic progress from assessments of student behavior.
- The Washington Post reports zeros have an outsized effect on student grades that can discourage students from trying, but critics say no-zero policies encourage students to do as little as possible or they promote students who don’t master the material.
- In Maryland, Fairfax County schools do not allow homework to factor into more than 10% of a student’s grade, and Prince George’s County schools don’t factor behavior or attendance into student grades at all, while a handful of Kentucky schools have created dual grading systems to separate academic mastery from work habits.
Dive Insight:
When considering changes to grading policies, administrators must consider their goals for grading systems. Should grades be an assessment of academic progress, exclusively, or tie things like behavior, attendance, and effort in, too? Many people argue the job of schools is to prepare students for careers, and in the workplace, behavior, attendance, and effort count. But if punitive grading systems end up making students even less motivated to try than they otherwise might be, an overhaul could improve student outcomes.
Research data shows teacher biases impact responses to bad student behavior, with black and Latino children more likely to get harsher punishments, as are boys. Since that is the case, pinning student progress to subjective evaluations may be misguided.