De-grading America’s Children
When teachers assess students, they must accurately report what students learn. Yet too often, this doesn’t happen.
Grading for Equity, written by Joe Feldman, a former teacher, administrator, and “educational grading consultant,” was published in 2018 and has since gained traction nationwide. RealClearInvestigations reports that Boston Public Schools approved a shift to equity grading in 2023. In Oregon, Portland Public Schools implemented similar grading reforms in 2025. Teachers in New York City, Los Angeles, and elsewhere have also been trained in equitable grading practices.
In the Grading for Equity procedure, teachers don’t factor in homework, extra credit, or “soft-skill” behaviors such as punctuality, attendance, timely assignment submission, and class participation. Students receive additional time to complete tests and can retake them to demonstrate mastery or improve their grades.
American Enterprise Institute scholar Rick Hess writes that Feldman also supports “minimum grading,” more commonly known as the “no-zero” policy. “With this practice, teachers are prevented from assigning students any grade under 50%, often regardless of whether the student even attempted the task. If a student who would otherwise have earned a zero, a 25, or a 45 suddenly gets a 50, that will necessarily increase (read: inflate) that student’s grade without changes in the quality of the student’s work.”
As a result, half of all seniors now graduate with grades in the A range, making it by far the most common grade. Yet state-administered proficiency tests and SAT and ACT scores continue to decline year after year, according to Hannah Frankman Hood, founder of renegadeEducator.
Hood writes, “Once upon a time, grades were at least a nominally objective measure of academic merit, in the sense that they equated roughly to a percentage: an A meant a student got 90–100% of the work correct, a B meant they got 80–89% correct, and mastering less than half meant a failing grade. And more importantly, there were far fewer incentives for a teacher to misrepresent them.”
Philadelphia exemplifies the nation’s grading absurdity. An investigative report by The Philadelphia Inquirer reveals that public school educators face intense pressure from administrators to pass students despite low academic performance or chronic absenteeism. Teachers say administrators discourage assigning failing grades and often override them.
Standardized tests often expose flawed grading practices. An analysis by the Success Academy Charter Schools network found that in 906 New York City public schools, fewer than half of students passed math, reading, or both on state exams last year.
In total, a staggering 43% of the system’s approximately 912,000 students attend these failing schools, according to the shocking report released in July.
The analysis found that many high school graduates are unprepared for college-level work and must take remedial courses when they enroll in New York City’s community colleges. Importantly, the analysis indicates that pervasive grade inflation has masked the depth of the problem.
NYC’s grading policy measures effort, participation, and attendance, but it excludes performance on standardized math and English exams.
The Panel for Educational Policy under then-Mayor Bill de Blasio scrapped the use of state test scores as part of a student’s grade, which means nearly all students who score poorly on state exams end up receiving good grades and being promoted.
It gets worse. These days, even standardized tests aren’t immune to the grade-inflation trend. In fact, some tests have been dumbed down, which in turn raises students’ grades. For example, The College Board, which oversees the Advanced Placement (AP) program, admits that its questions are easier and that passing scores have been lowered on key tests such as the English Language exam. The College Board justifies the easier tests as an adjustment to a less demanding high school curriculum and to lowered expectations by colleges and universities. In other words, the AP test creators are simply adapting to the broad decline in educational standards.
It is only natural that masking students’ lack of knowledge rears its ugly head in higher education. Not surprisingly, professors across the country warn that students are unprepared for college. At Berkeley, mathematics professor Zvezdelina Stankova has described calculus students who cannot solve basic algebra problems, such as 7x − 5 = 9. She says some students arrive at college five to eight years behind where they should be in math.
Also, beginning in 2027, freshmen at the University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts will no longer receive letter grades to better accommodate unprepared students. The university says the change will help “foster an environment where students can acclimate to the demands” of college.
The real-world damage caused by our failing education system and its attempts to obscure the depth of the problem with inflated grading is frightening. As Tea Party Founder Jenny Beth Martin notes, the next generation is entering a world where the U.S. competes with China and other nations for leadership in artificial intelligence, biotechnology, medicine, manufacturing, etc. That competition requires minds capable of mastering challenging subjects and solving difficult problems. Our competitors are not lowering their standards the way we are.
Martin adds that America will not remain a technological and economic leader if universities admit students who are five years behind in math and then lower expectations even further. “We cannot produce the next generation of innovators by teaching children to seek shelter from challenges.”
A Prairie Home Companion, the weekly radio variety show created and hosted by Garrison Keillor, aired live from 1974 to 2016 and featured Lake Wobegon, a fictional Minnesota town famously described as a place “where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.”
While the “all the children are above average” line was humorous at the time, it’s not funny anymore. Instead of teaching what students need to know to live knowledgeable, productive lives, many teachers spend valuable class time on politically charged topics such as DEI and CRT and then inflate student grades.
Thomas Jefferson believed only educated citizens could make the American experiment in self-government succeed. The nation’s future is at stake. We must change course ASAP.
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