No zeros. No late penalties for late work. Unlimited retakes on tests and quizzes. No credit for turning in homework or participation in class.
These policies are among those associated with “equitable grading,” an approach popularized by author and former educator Joe Feldman. Advocates say that equitable grading policies make assessing students’ work more accurate by prioritizing summative over formative assessments, separating academic from behavioral performance, and subsequently reducing subjectivity in the overall grading process. But skeptics argue the approach can compromise rigor and lead to grade inflation.
While educational pundits have debated the practice’s pros and cons, teachers’ voices have largely been missing from the conversation, said Adam Tyner, the national research director at Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education policy think tank that advocates for high expectations and academic rigor. That is, until now.
The Fordham Institute, in partnership with the RAND Corp., on Wednesday released a report based on a nationally representative teacher survey that examines the prevalence of the five aforementioned equitable grading practices in K-12 classrooms and aims to capture how teachers feel about them. The study, conducted in the fall of 2024, surveyed 967 K-12 teachers.
“People just had no idea of whether teachers really like this stuff, or don’t, or how they feel about it,” said Tyner. “This is the first time that any real data has been available to try to speak to the prevalence of some of these more controversial grading reforms.”
How prevalent are equitable grading policies in the classroom?
According to the report findings, most teachers have begun to use some elements of equitable grading. About half of the teachers surveyed said their school or district has adopted at least one of these equitable grading policies: no zeros, no penalties for late work, unlimited retakes on tests and quizzes, no credit for completing homework, and no credit for class participation.
About 36% of respondents reported adopting more than one of these policies, and a quarter of all teachers surveyed said their school or district had adopted each of the following three policies: unlimited retakes, no late penalties, and no zeros. But only 2% of respondents reported that all five policies had been adopted.
“The places that are really aggressive with this [policy] really are a small fringe group,” Tyner said.
Middle schools are more likely than elementary or high schools to have policies of unlimited retakes, no late penalties, and no zeroes, the report found.
In total, there are 11 policies that make up equitable grading. Others include establishing clear rubrics to determine when students have mastered a skill or concept, and reporting student behavior separately from class grades.
The Fordham and RAND researchers limited their survey to just five equitable grading policies due to space constraints, selecting those that have generated the most controversy over the last few years, Tyner said.
But that limitation compromises the overall takeaways from the study, Feldman said.
“To try and glean the impact of practices by only looking at a subset of equitable grading, and the teachers are only talking about using a subset, is really an incomplete application of equitable grading,” he said.
How teachers feel about specific grading policies
The Fordham researchers reported that many teachers found the grading practices named in the survey to be harmful to student achievement—some more so than others.
For instance, 81% of respondents agreed that “giving partial credit for assignments never turned in” is harmful to academic engagement. So, too, did 80% of teachers of color, and 80% of teachers in schools that serve mostly students of color, which seems notable given that equitable grading practices are designed to be “bias-resistant.”
Some respondents to the survey added related comments.
“I am an educator with 33 years in the classroom, and I see a terrible trend,” one teacher wrote. “Students are starting to feel entitled to points for nothing.”
Another wrote: “Sometimes it feels like the only acceptable grades are A-, A, and A+.”
When asked about the policies of excluding homework and class participation from grades, more teachers said they thought incorporating participation or homework into grades can encourage student engagement than those who said it would be harmful.
Survey responses reflect differing philosophies of grading
Historically, countless teachers have allowed students to boost their grades by turning in homework or participating in classroom discussions. But, Feldman said, this practice can muddy the accuracy of the grade, as it no longer reflects a student’s true understanding of the course content.
It’s just one example of how advocates and critics of equitable grading policies perceive the purpose of grading differently.
The Fordham study authors suggested that the survey results prove that most teachers are skeptical of equitable grading policies, which they believe “relinquish teachers’ few sources of leverage” over students’ motivation.
Proponents of equitable grading policies, however, perceive student motivation in a very different light.
“I think people who support traditional grading are very interested in motivation as compliance, whereas equitable grading talks about motivation in terms of personal responsibility,” Feldman said.
Still, despite the differences in opinion, Feldman feels optimistic about the future of grading.
“Ten years ago, few people were talking about grading in this kind of way,” he said. “I think now graduate schools and professional development administrators and teachers are raising questions about our inherited practices of grading, which means that there’s the possibility to improve them.”
