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“The grade you get is the grade you’ve earned.” Most of us have heard this phrase is high school, probably as you were desperately trying to convince your teacher to bump your grade. Some may have taken this with a grain of salt, others may have taken this phrase as a motivator. With that said, it leads us to ask ourselves, is the grade you get really the grade you’ve earned? Well, with the introduction to “No Zero” grading policies into high schools I’m more than inclined to say no. Students are not getting the grade they’ve earned, just the grade they’ve been handed.
For those who have long forgotten their high school years and haven’t heard the term “No Zero Grading Policy”, lets enlighten you. In recent years more and more high school systems are starting to adapt this “No Zero Grading Policy”. This grading policy makes it impossible for students to be given a score of less than fifty percent on any given assignment, regardless of completion, effort, or academic ability. The policy essentially makes the percentage zero through forty-nine nonexistent.
Why is this such a big deal? Many of you may be asking yourself. Well, this is a big deal because high school is a student’s preparation not only for college but for the real world and life. High school is your demo version, your free trial so to say at life and the real world. In college there is no fifty percent as the lowest score, you can’t turn in an assignment and expect to get half credit on it. We are setting up high school students to fail, they can’t succeed if we keep handicapping them. The No Zero grading policy is affecting their future in many ways. Colleges are now starting to not accept students who come from a No Zero grading policy high school regardless of their GPA because it is not an accurate reflection of their academic ability. So, for the kids that took high school seriously and studied hard, day in and day out you can say goodbye to those dreams of Princeton or Harvard.
Now you may argue that the No Zero grading policy is a part of the “No child left behind” initiative and that its actually helping students who learn at slower paces, are troubled some, or have family issues outside of school. Now as all that may seem true, we really must ask ourselves here, is this the right thing to do? Is inflating their grades really the best way to help these kids that need a little bit more help than some of the other children? Handing out free grades to students may make it seem like we are helping them but what happens when they graduate from high school and they don’t have someone leaning over their shoulder anymore helping them along. No one is going to give them a paycheck for not showing up to work let alone for not doing half of their job.
A high school teacher, Gina Caneva from (March 2014) Catalyst Chicago, says ”It is a terrible lesson to teach any student that it is okay to be lazy. Lowering academic expectations will only hurt our students in the long run.” As a high school teacher Ms. Caneva witnesses first-hand what the policy is doing to these students, her best interest is in her students and she, like many other teachers, feels the students need help but they also feel that this is not the way to help them. Ms. Caneva also states that “parents can be allies. During parent-teacher conferences, they were put off by the no-zero policy. Many parents felt students should receive zeros if they didn’t do work and that receiving a grade of fifty percent instead is not giving students a real consequence.” No one thinks the no-zero policy will actually help or benefit that children in any way, not the parents, not the teachers and even some students them self, know that this is actually hurting them not helping them. So, then who actually thinks the no-zero policy is a good thing you might ask. The few who think this policy is beneficial are the school board members and administration, the people don’t interact directly with the students on the day to day basis. Now why would the board members and administration believe so strongly in a policy when their teachers don’t? Well, according to “The Education Digest” schools and school systems are graded on something called the freshman on track rate this is the statistic that shows what percentage of high school freshman students are on track to graduate within four years. According to Ms. Caneva after one year of having the no-zero policy, many teachers wanted to reverse the policy because they thought it was hurting the students. Ms. Caneva states, “the administration wouldn’t allow it, why would they when the freshman on-track rate had increased nearly thirty percent”. That may seem like a positive statistic but in actuality, it’s not accurate compared to that of schools that do not have a no zero policy.
In a study conducted by Janelle Dennis (August 2018), she found that “high school teachers are struggling to motivate students who have attended a middle school with a no-zero policy in place”. Janelle also found that these students from no zero-grading policy middle schools show signs of “learned helplessness”. Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness (1976) is the theoretical framework for Janelle Dennis’ study. Janelle’s study suggests and shows that students who attend a no zero grading policy school have lower core class (Science, English, and Mathematics) grades compared to those students who attend schools that give zeros as a grade.
There is more than enough evidence that not only suggests but proves the fact beyond a reasonable doubt that no zero grading policies among all school levels have immediate and long-term effects not only on the grade of the students but also on their everyday ambition, motivation, and demeanor. The only real reason this policy is still in school and is still growing is due to what could be called the failure of the school systems and administration to sufficiently and adequately motivate and prepare their students for classes, exams, and what’s beyond their schooling. The no zero grading policy is a lazy attempt by the administration to prove to the school board that the school is preforming at minimal required performance. There were, what seemed like pros about this grading policy, but the pros still hurt the students in the long run. The cons obviously outweigh the pros, but these policies are still being implemented into middle and high schools everywhere. The no zero grading policy is a tumor that will keep growing and keep hurting the students of the schools it infects.
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