Two weeks ago, when I wrote about the proliferation of 50 percent grading floors in K-12 schools, I was shocked that there wasn’t more evidence available to have informed such a systemic change in the first place. The teachers I spoke to for that newsletter felt that this kind of policy — which prevents them from giving students zeros, including, in some cases, when they’ve skipped an assignment — coupled with policies that don’t allow them to factor attendance into grading, left them with few options for holding students accountable.
Even some proponents of no-zero grading have acknowledged that there’s not much proof that it actually improves outcomes. A 2010 journal article arguing in favor of this policy — on the grounds that giving students zeros can wind up discouraging them — conceded that the benefits of those “minimum grading” policies were largely theoretical...