In the first months of the pandemic, school leaders and state officials made a unified call for grace, an acknowledgment that students and teachers both had more pressing concerns than academic expectations: They relaxed grading policies, canceled end-of-year assessments, or directed teachers not to fail students because of work not completed during shutdowns.
Over the past two years, though, school systems have brought back many of these requirements. State and school district leaders’ pleas for lenience have thinned, and their expectations for teachers and students have risen. Teachers are tasked with “catching up” students, trying to prepare them for success in the next grade and beyond while accounting for the disruptions of the past two years...