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Ella McCune
Everyone has gotten a low grade once, whether it be on a classwork assignment, homework, or a test. As frustrating as it can be, it’s justifiable, right? Or is it? Maybe there was a particularly busy night and not all the homework got done in time; maybe there was an emergency. It’s not always who people expect to get a low grade. A single zero given to a student who has a 100% in the class drops it down to an average of a 50%. What students and teachers should be asking themselves is: Is a 0 worth it? Or does it do more harm than good?
To begin, let’s look at this from a mathematical perspective. The grading scale uses intervals such as 60-69, 70-79,80-89, and 90-100. When looking at the gap between the intervals listed, it’s only a 10-point gap, but the gap between 60 and getting an F is a 60-point gap, which alone looks as unreasonable as it sounds.
According to the ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development), “The effect of that difference in range is to give missing assignments considerably more weight in determining a final grade than assignments of the same type that were completed. Expressed another way, after receiving a zero it takes a whole lot of 100s to get the cumulative grade up to a D−.” Putting zeros into a traditional zero-based grading system can drastically disproportionate the grade and make academic recovery difficult.
The grading policies should distinguish between a student's understanding of the material and their failure to complete an assignment. The zero makes it unnecessarily difficult to understand whether or not the low grade is simply because of not understanding a concept or just not completing missing work.
Next, grades reflect the learner immensely. Though it’s said that grades don’t make a person, sometimes they do. Behavior, if needed to be included as part of a grade, should be separate from an assignment grade itself. According to the National Education Policy Center, “Schools, teachers, parents, and students must set aside grading as a system of rewards and punishments, and begin to see grading as a subset of assessment, which must be used as a system of feedback and student revision to support student learning.”
Grades should support learners in areas where they need academic help, not behavioral issues. If grades are meant to be a demonstration of academic understanding of a topic, then it’s illogical to mark it as a zero simply because it’s a missing assignment; a missing assignment and demonstrated lack of understanding are nowhere near the same thing.
If behavior does need to be a part of a grade, then schools should hold those students accountable. If it’s a matter of missing assignments, then teachers should record that work as missing and communicate it to the student and use a separate measure so as not to confuse missing work with a lack of academic understanding.
While not giving a zero on an assignment and taking different measures to show the incomplete work, some may argue that it’s not enough to motivate the learner to complete it and would seem that by not giving a zero to students would seem more like a reward for doing nothing. According to the Fordham Institute, “these changes inflate grades, erode accountability, and ultimately harm student learning—and many teachers agree.”. The major concern here is that not giving students a zero on a missing assignment completely diminishes any accountability that a learner needs to take, and giving them a 50% instead on an assignment represents that they did in some form, complete the assignment but showed a lack of understanding of the topic.
However, the argument here isn’t that they should receive credit for doing nothing, but rather that the lack of a completed assignment should be reported so students, teachers, and administrators understand that the assignment went incomplete rather than confusing it with giving a zero, which would ultimately suggest that they didn’t understand the academic material. Allowing a minimum grade is also suggested to inflate the grade and allow the learner to move on without fully understanding the material, but according to Carey and Carifio’s minimum grade study, “Statistical analyses revealed no evidence that minimum grading was inducing either grade inflation or social promotion.” Eliminating zeros doesn’t necessarily mean getting rid of consequences or responsibility. Schools can require students to complete the missing work and distinguish between the completion of an assignment and full understanding of the topic. The accountability that comes with completing the assignment can still be maintained without having to depend on the grading system.
In conclusion, education should be the measurement of process, growth, and understanding, and shouldn’t give a single missing assignment the power to diminish academic recovery. Putting in zeros can completely ruin a grade and make it make a learner struggle to bounce back because of an incomplete assignment; instead, it should be reported as a missing assignment and to show it wasn’t completed, with a separate grade to show understanding of the academic topic. Grades should reflect a learner's progress and understanding, not the incompleteness of an assignment.
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