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The issue has been festering for decades. Studies, conferences and PTA gossip regularly reveal grades awarded by teachers on report cards that distort how much students are learning. We sometimes complain but do little about it.

Now researchers Meredith Coffey and Adam Tyner of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute have taken this exasperation to a new level, with a<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/think-again-does-equitable-grading-benefit-students*:*:text=Moreover*2C*20there*20is*20not*20an,for*20their*20performance*20in*20class__;I34lJSUlJSUlJSU!!M9LbjjnYNg9jBDflsQ!GJrOsgU3nX1eyIg1LBe2e20Aqk2lKLJ43B4mBmF9bxDqZxnqg-TdmlwwP510iTpZ18g7PpylK847seOsG8R3Ih4gjA$" target="_blank"> detailed report</a> wondering why we demand so little of our students when their school hours are critical to their futures.

We journalists are as much at fault as anybody. We often report about political fights over sexual and racial references in classes and textbooks but mostly ignore easy grading designed to keep students and their families happy rather than motivated to make schools work.

In their report — “<a href="https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/research/think-again-does-equitable-grading-benefit-students*:*:text=Moreover*2C*20there*20is*20not*20an,for*20their*20performance*20in*20class__;I34lJSUlJSUlJSU!!M9LbjjnYNg9jBDflsQ!GJrOsgU3nX1eyIg1LBe2e20Aqk2lKLJ43B4mBmF9bxDqZxnqg-TdmlwwP510iTpZ18g7PpylK847seOsG8R3Ih4gjA$" target="_blank">Think Again: Does ‘equitable’ grading benefit students?</a>” — Coffey and Tyner bemoan policies such as those that forbid penalties for late work or ensure nothing that students do will be marked less than 50 percent despite evidence many kids don’t understand the lesson.

The researchers admit that some adjustments in traditional grading can be useful. “But top-down policies that make grading more lenient are not the answer, especially as schools grapple with the academic and behavioral challenges of the postpandemic era,” they write.

“No-zero mandates, homework grading bans and prohibitions on penalties for late work and cheating … tend to reduce expectations and accountability for students, hamstring teachers’ ability to manage their classrooms and motivate students, and confuse parents and other stakeholders,” the report states.

They note <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272703000392" target="_blank">a 2004 study</a> of more than 5,000 third-, fourth- and fifth-graders in Alachua County, Fla., by professors David Figlio and Maurice Lucas that found students assigned to teachers who graded more strictly “went on to experience greater test score growth in both reading and math.” A <a href="https://files.americanexperiment.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/20200204-great-expectationsthe-impact-rigorous-grading-practices-student-achievement0.pdf" target="_blank">2020 study</a> by American University’s Seth Gershenson of eighth- and ninth-grade Algebra I students in North Carolina found the same thing happening, both in the tough teachers’ classes and subsequent math courses.

Standardized tests that measure what children actually know are exposing a tendency to cover up failure. Gershenson’s report on grading standards in North Carolina found that from 2006 to 2016 more than one-third of students awarded a B in algebra failed to score proficient on a state algebra exam. Nationally the average ACT composite score in 2021 was the worst of any year since 2010, while the average grade-point average of ACT test takers that year was the highest ever reported, 3.4 on a four-point scale.

By contrast, the average U.S. high school grade-point average increased from about 2.6 in 1990 to about 3.0 in 2021.

In the 2000s and increasingly in the 2010s, educators who felt tough grading was creating an unhealthy dislike of school pushed for eased requirements. Books by grade-reform gurus such as Ken O’Connor, Cornelius Minor and Joe Feldman sold well and led to many large districts banning zeros on assignments.

Many educators say that trend has gone too far. In his report on disappointing results in North Carolina, Gershenson quoted one teacher saying: “We just end up, as teachers, it’s easier — and this is awful to say — it’s easier just to pass the kid than to actually give valid feedback, if that makes sense.”

In some places, the equitable grading movement has weakened one of the most successful school reforms of the past 50 years — improving high school learning by getting more students into college-level courses such as Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate.

Noah Lipman teaches courses in AP U.S. history, African American studies, government and macroeconomics to juniors and seniors at Highlands High School in San Antonio. Almost all of the school’s students are from low-income Hispanic families.

Teachers in several parts of the country have reported that disadvantaged students benefit from having to struggle in AP courses. Because of their exertions, they argue, the students can emerge better prepared for college, even if they do not pass the AP final exams.

Knowing this, Lipman helped create a rule at Highlands High that no student would be allowed to drop any AP class in the first six weeks. Administrators, however, have ignored that restriction, he said. They often pull his students out of AP much sooner because of fear that low grades would discourage them, a central tenet of the equitable grading movement.

“Between 10 to 15 percent of my students are dropped from my roster in the first four weeks,” he said. “Often, I never even know the student is being dropped. I am never part of the conversation.”

San Antonio schools spokeswoman Laura R. Short said the district provides “access to AP courses for all of our students.” But she did not explain why district supervisors were pulling students out of AP courses despite the protests of teachers like Lipman other than to say parents initiated the requests. Lipman said he had not seen that in his classes.

Politicians find it easy to inspire anger in voters about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/04/04/education-laws-red-blue-divide/" target=_blank>sexual and racial topics</a> in classrooms. But it is harder to get those same voters excited about too many students getting easy A’s.

The issue has become a part of American school culture as indelible as pop quizzes and parents night, although not much has been done about it. It goes at least as far back as 1913, when educational psychologist and elementary school textbook editor Guy Montrose Whipple attacked “the reliability of the marking system” as “an absolutely uncalibrated instrument.”

More emphasis on stretching young minds rather than padding their grade-point averages would help. Challenging tests such as AP and IB finals are graded by impartial experts. That motivates more effort than final exams in regular classes that are graded by students’ own teachers, who know those children and tend to be more lenient.

But so far school boards appear to have too many other topics on their agendas to make more demanding work for students a priority.

Upton Sinclair award in 2009 as "a beacon of light in the realm of education"

Eugene Meyer award in 2006 for distinguished service to the Washington Post

Benjamin Fine Education Awards in 1999 for best column and for best story on a single subject 

Education Writers Associatlon Award in 1984 for series on job training

Question Everything, 2015

The War Against Dummy Math, 2012

Work Hard. Be Nice., 2009

Supertest, 2005

Harvard Schmarvard, 2003

Class Struggle, 1998

A Mother's Touch, 1992

Escalante, 1988

One Billion, 1983 (with Linda Mathews)

Harvard College, BA in government

Harvard University, MA in East Asian regional studies

Jay Mathews is an education columnist for The Washington Post, his employer for nearly 50 years. He created the annual Challenge Index rankings of high schools and has written nine books.