Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Equitable grading’s primary pillar is to accurately describe student learning, free from non-academic behavior and biased subjectivity of the teacher, which reduces factors that can inflate grades. 

Teachers who first encounter equitable grading fear that the practices will lower expectations, but they and their students experience the opposite: equitable grading actually increases academic expectations and rigor because it focuses students, and their teachers, entirely on learning and mastering course content.

In comparison, traditional grading emphasizes getting points instead of learning, and because our inherited grading includes students’ non-academic behaviors–raising their hands, completing their homework (regardless of whether they copy or get assistance), arriving to class on time, bringing in food for the class potluck or tissues, bringing in their syllabus signed, etc., the grade becomes inaccurate, often inflating it. In other words, traditional grading practices can allow students with weak understanding of course content to cover up those weaknesses. 

Equitable grading works to prevent grade inflation.

Qualitative and quantitative data supports that equitable grading decreases grade inflation and raises academic standards. External evaluators have found that equitable grading consistently decreases grade inflation among teachers in our System Change Partnerships. A high school World Language teacher shared what teachers have repeatedly told us: “I used to think that equitable grading would make it easier for students to pass my class, but now I think it is fair and holds them accountable to their learning.”

Equitable grading does not prohibit zeros.
Equitable grading means a grade should always accurately describe a student’s level of understanding of course content. If they know nothing about the course content, their grade should reflect that: with a zero. If they know more than nothing about the course content, then the grade obviously wouldn’t be a zero. For teachers who want to signal missing work with a 0, the most mathematically sound way to do this–and therefore the most accurate–is to use the 0-4 scale.

In addition, equitable grading utilizes mathematical and pedagogical improvements to the traditional, century-old 0-100% scale. When teachers use a scale of 50-100% or 0-4, grades are more mathematically sound and accurate, and promote less variability across teachers (e.g., Starch, 1913; Brimi, 2011), and has been found not to cause grade inflation (e.g., Carifio & Carey, 2013, 2015).

Read Chapter 7 of Grading for Equity 

Equitable grading does not endorse unlimited retakes.

Grading equitably means that students should have multiple opportunities to show their learning, and each retake should be preceded by support so that there is improvement. At the same time, teachers have a limited amount of time and capacity (just like their students), and teachers have many options to balance these two interests.  

Read Chapter 11 of Grading for Equity 

Equitable grading does not believe in no deadlines for assignments or that late work has no consequences. 

There should be deadlines, and late work should result in consequences for the student, but those consequences should not be included in the grade for that work. Why? Grades are inaccurate when a student can get a B for B-level work that is turned in on time, and a student with A-level work but submits it late also receives a B, which results in two students with entirely different performances getting the identical grade. Consequences for submitting work after the deadline can include additional time, reflection, or “natural consequences”–they still have to do the work that is late as well as current assignments.

Equitable grading often more accurately reflects the “real” or professional world than traditional grading. 

For example, in traditional grading, homework performance (or practice) is included in the grade, but in college homework isn’t usually collected, much less graded. And in the professional world, what matters is not the practice but the performance. In fact, while traditional grading is designed almost entirely to teach compliance and a particular way of learning (a student must take notes, must raise their hand, must answer every homework question), equitable grading builds much more sophisticated, 21st century skills of self-regulation, creativity, character, and metacognition that equips students for greater success for post-secondary and professional challenges. 

And with equitable grading, when important work skills such as collaboration is a course standard or outcome, explicitly taught with clear and unbiased evaluations, that is included in equitable grading.

Read Chapter 13 of Grading for Equity