Ditch These 5 Biased Grading Policies Now

What does a grade represent? In reality, grades don’t mean what we think they do. What we experienced as students and brought into our own class are largely biased grading policies that harm many of our students.

In so many classrooms in schools across the country, a grade could represent any combination of the following:

1. how many absences the student had
2. the number of mistakes made early on in the quarter ( regardless of how much their skills grew toward the end)
3. The student’s ability to get to class on time
4. How often students turned in late work, regardless of their understanding of the material
5. Teacher’s implicit biases toward students
6. The resources available or unavailable to a student ( like a quiet place to work, access to food and shelter, time to work after school, parents or tutors available to help, etc.)
7. Students who didn’t learn much of anything, because they were already good at it
8. Traumatic events experienced by the student that affected their focus

The list below explores 5 grading practices we need to get rid of if we want to move toward a classroom and grading system that reflects academic achievement rather than the privilege and resources of our students. I’m not here to argue WHY that’s important, but if you want to know more, I highly suggest checking out Joe Feldman’s book, Grading for Equity.

Rethinking 5 Biased Grading Policies

1. Timeliness

WHY IT’S BIASED

• Although adhering to timelines is an executive functioning skill that is useful in the real world, it is not related to any standard I teach. There are any number of reasons why an assignment could be late:
  • The student needed help from you
  • The student had no time to work on the assignment  due to work or family responsibilities
  • The student does not have a quiet place to work at home
  • The student took longer to process and/ or to master the material
  • Their other needs of safety, food, shelter, etc. are not being met

Therefore, taking off points for work that is late means that the students’ overall grade no longer only indicates academic progress.

• It also does not teach time management skills, it only penalizes the students unable to consistently demonstrate mastery of them.
• Not allowing late work after a certain date can also have catastrophic effects on a students’ grade. They could reach a point where no matter how much work they do for you they cannot earn a passing grade. At that point, their overall grade no longer reflects their progress, it reflects their ability to turn in work on time.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

Recognize that our students are still learning and developing. Even if a student only decides they are ready to learn ( or has the means to do so)halfway through the semester, they should be able to earn a grade that reflects their academic achievement. I thought that accepting late work would create a lot of headache for me, but it really didn’t. First, I received a lot fewer assignments that were rushed, copied, incomplete, or didn’t demonstrate mastery. Second, students were more motivated knowing that they had the ability to budget their time as needed and could catch up without penalty. It is important to affirm with students that their work is valuable and that their mastery of skills is what’s important. There are plenty of ways to teach timeliness, but the gradebook just isn’t the place for it.

2. Extra Credit

WHY IT’S BIASED

• The students who complete extra credit ( in my class, at least) are the ones who don’t really need it. As teachers, we often offer extra credit only after students have completed all work whether in the class or on a particular assignments. This means our most academically inclined students, who probably don’t need a few extra points, are the only students who benefit from this.
• Often ( though not always), extra credit assignments are only curriculum- adjacent, not directly standards- based. For example, I would give a few points to students who went and saw a movie related to the novel or attended a college fair. Points added for non- academic tasks invalidate a students overall score – it’s no longer an indicator of academic achievement according to skills learned or progress made, its related to their ability to finish work quickly or attend outside of school activities. 

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

 For students who finish early, I give them other opportunities. They can revise a previous assignment, help another student who needs assistance, or work on something for another class. One of my favorite things to do is to give students a mini research task (for example, create a short slide deck explaining the 4 Humors as they apply to Shakespeare) , explaining that I need their help to get it ready for a future class. They’ll learn a little extra about the subject and feel empowered because they are helping you out – kids love that! In return, I’ll offer candy, a sticker, or some other non- academic reward. 

For students who NEED points, I will always let them complete missing work or redo low- scored assignments. When they ask me if there is any extra credit they can do to help their grade, I let them know there’s plenty of original work they can do. I take a moment to check the gradebook with them and let them know what they are missing or  show them an assignment they can demonstrate further mastery on. I occasionally have the opportunity to buddy this student with someone who did well on the task who has some extra time to help. 

3. Homework Grades

WHY IT’S BIASED

• First, they reward students who already understand material and penalizes students who make mistakes (i.e. are learning). Homework is a great formative tool, but when we take points away for incorrect answers, we are not valuing the learning, we are valuing perfection. But if we assign effort or completion grades to homework, it invalidates the overall grade as a measure of success. 
• Second, aside from the fact that no one on the planet besides Hermione Granger really loves homework, the idea of homework suggests a number of privileges:
  • Ample time to complete assignments, meaning no or few other responsibilities ( like work, cooking dinner, caring for siblings, etc.)
  • A designated space in their home conducive to focus and learning. 
  • Parents or siblings available, willing, and able to help when students get stuck. 
  • Access to technology when needed
• Third, assigning grades to homework encourages cheating. When students know their final grade is determined by collecting as many points as possible, they’ll do what they need to do. Of course some students cheat out of laziness or apathy, but more often they are overwhelmed with work and other responsibilities, or they lack enough understanding of the content or assignment to complete it successfully.

When we assign grades to homework, we aren’t grading a student’s skills. This biased grading policy assesses a student’s access to resources.

We are grading how many resources they have at home. We are grading their ability to work independently or get help from parents or tutors. We are grading how closely aligned their family’s cultural values are with our own. 

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

The idea of assigning homework is a topic for another day. However, if we are assigning homework, that homework should serve as a formative tool only and not be included in the gradebook. There will definitely be a dip in students who don’t complete the homework, until they see the correlation between practice and success on the test. It’s up to us as teachers to ensure that each homework assignment we give lends itself to the end goal of the lesson or unit, that we ensure students have the tools they need to complete the task independently, and follow up with students who are not making progress.

4. Class Participation/ Non- Academic Grades

WHY IT’S BIASED

• Whether it’s its own category in the gradebook or attached to the rubric for an assignment, class participation is one of those “behavior grades” that has nothing to do with content. I was always ( still am, as a matter of fact) that student who rarely spoke up in class. It’s not because I’m not listening or learning, and not because I have nothing to say. Participation favors outgoing students, students who know how to enter a conversation, students who feel at ease with the people they are learning with. 
• A participation grade does nothing to TEACH those skills, nothing to ENCOURAGE an environment of participation. It just penalizes students who don’t. This used to be one of the tricks I would use to pad the grades of students who participated all the time but rarely turned in work, convince students to pay attention, or bribe students into reading aloud. I realized that there are myriad reasons why students don’t participate verbally, but it’s not always because they aren’t paying attention.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

Reward students in the moment for great participation – knick- knacks, stickers, candy – you get the idea. Cultivate an environment of welcome and praise by encouraging students to react positively to each others’ comments and recognize the value in every students’ ideas. Recognize and celebrate participation, even if it’s the wrong answer. This is not a culture that happens in one day, but over time will yield better results than a grade will get you.

Of course, Common Core English standards do include speaking and listening components, and I do believe it’s important that students learn to speak their mind constructively, so there are times when it’s appropriate to grade verbal discussion. In this case, teachers should ensure that:

• Students are given plenty of time to LEARN the skills before they are assessed as a grade
• Students are graded on a standards – aligned rubric , rather than a subjective “eyeballed” score
• Students have the opportunity to reflect, re- learn, and try again.

I use Socratic Seminars in my classroom for assessing the Speaking and Listening standards. I have an entire lesson plan that works for any text and includes a rubric.

5. Subjective Grading (i.e. effort-based or without a rubric/ mastery definition)

WHY IT’S BIASED

• Teachers are not immune to implicit biases. When we grade based on “effort” or other intangible, subjective systems, we often base our grade not just on the work at hand, but the student themselves. 
• Studies have shown that when grading is subjective, teachers often go easier on white students or students whose first language is English (Staats 2015, Bonefeld and Dickhauser 2017).
• Grading on effort or on our own judgement without specific criteria also invalidates students’ overall scores – this grade will often have little to do with academic progress or achievement.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD

This school year, I started grading EVERY assignment on a rubric. According to David Quinn, using rubrics is an effective way to reduce implicit bias in grading (2020). Even though it was extra work on the front end it actually made my life so much easier. Instead of reading through and nit picking every question or task and then deciding on my own what score it should receive, I read through the work, clicked boxes on a rubric, and made a few comments for each student. Creating the rubric made sure that I was grading students on the skill or content I needed them to master and that that was clearly explained to my students beforehand. If I scored students lower for spelling and grammar errors, students could see that reflected on the rubric, and revisit their work and resubmit it if they chose.  What happened was I developed a culture of feedback and mastery. Students could always earn the score they wanted if they were willing to revise their work!

This certainly isn’t a comprehensive list, but these are the practices that I have used in the past and have recognized lead to bias and undermine the value of grades in my classroom. I’d love to know what your experiences with these grading practices are! Drop a comment below.

RESOURCES

Bonefeld, M., & Dickhäuser, O. (2018). (Biased) Grading of Students’ Performance: Students’ Names, Performance Level, and Implicit Attitudes. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 481. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00481

Feldman, J. (2018). Grading for equity: What it is, why it matters, and how it can transform schools and classrooms.

Quinn, David M. “How to Reduce Racial Bias in Grading: New research supports a simple, low-cost teaching tool.” Education Next, vol. 21, no. 1, 2021, p. 72+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A645314687/AONE?u=mlin_oweb&sid=googleScholar&xid=ef56024e. Accessed 7 July 2021.

Staats, Cheryl. (2020, September 10). Understanding Implicit Bias. American Federation of Teachers. https://www.aft.org/ae/winter2015-2016/staats.