In San Leandro, California, public schools, students averaging as low as 80% can earn an A in their classes, and those scoring at least 21% can pass with a D.

In Frederick County, Maryland, students with failing scores can retake tests and essays until they pass.

It’s called grading for equity, and educators and parents have increasingly criticized it as a misguided effort to ensure Black and Hispanic children earn the same grades as their White and Asian peers.

“Equity grading is nothing more than grade inflation dressed up in social justice rhetoric,” said Lance Izumi, an education analyst at the free-market Pacific Research Institute in California.

Dozens of K-12 public school districts from Oregon to New York imposed equity grading policies as Black and Hispanic test scores plunged during pandemic school lockdowns in 2020-22.

Educational theorists introduced the approach, which considers traditional grading methods biased against low-income racial and linguistic minorities, in the late 2010s.

“The hope is to address gaps in achievement among marginalized groups, encouraging a diverse range of students to pursue more advanced coursework,” said Susan Courey, an education professor at private Touro University in New York.

Equity grading renders deadlines optional, eliminates the impact of homework on final grades, and forbids using class participation and behavior to evaluate student performance.

Parents and teachers have complained that such changes reward poor work habits that hurt students later in life.

For example, Atlanta Public Schools implemented a “no zeroes” equity policy in the fall of 2023 that required teachers to assign a 50% grade to all incomplete work. Widespread objections killed the policy within a week.

In May, the San Francisco Unified School District paused plans to launch an equity pilot program with 70 teachers in 14 schools after receiving a flurry of parental complaints.

Superintendent Maria Su suspended the pilot’s fall rollout shortly after several California Democrats, including liberal Rep. Ro Khanna, criticized the plan on social media.

“We owe our young people an education that prepares them to succeed. The proposed changes to grading at SFUSD would not accomplish that,” San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, a Democrat, wrote in a May 28 post on X. “I have conveyed our view to SFUSD. We are optimistic that there is a better path forward for our kids and their future.”

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has moved to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from schools. 

It remains unclear whether equity grading policies, which apply to all students, violate recent executive orders forbidding schools from treating students differently based on their race.

“Just like participation trophies, ‘equity’ grading systems do not prioritize success nor learning outcomes,” said Ellen Keast, a U.S. Education Department spokeswoman. “Unlike liberal school boards, the Trump administration is laser-focused on preparing the next generation of Americans for meaningful careers.”

To date, most of the backlash against equity grading has come from parents and teachers complaining that students have stopped doing their homework in schools that practice it.

“We are seeing pushback around the country, and the pushback is not confined to conservative or politically moderate areas,” said Adam Tyner, national research director at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative education think tank that tracks the issue. 

In Oregon, the Corvallis School District mandated “equitable grading practices” during 2020 campus lockdowns, then made them optional two years later as faculties rebelled.

Kelly Locey, a district spokeswoman, said Corvallis is still struggling to articulate a “clear and consistent” grading policy.

“The biggest pushback from 2020 to 2022 was from teachers,” Ms. Locey said. “More recently, with equitable grading practices no longer required in the Corvallis School District and each department setting its own grading policies, we have had pushback from parents about inconsistent implementation of grading practices. When students have to figure out six or seven different ways of grading, that can lead to confusion and anxiety.”

‘Biased’ system 

Despite the backlash, the number of public school districts practicing equity grading continues to increase.

Other districts that have tried it the past three years include: Boston; Auburn Hills, Michigan; Stamford, Connecticut; Fairfax, Virginia; Clark County, Nevada; Schenectady, New York; the District of Columbia; and Portland, Oregon.

Additionally, thousands of New York City and Los Angeles teachers have received training in the method.

Advocates point to these examples as signs that equity grading succeeds in districts with large minority performance gaps.

“The grading system in America is biased and privileges those with access to tools like fast internet, safe home environments that are conducive to study, and even access to tutoring,” said Omekongo Dibinga, a professor of intercultural communications affiliated with American University’s Antiracist Research and Policy Center. “Equitable grading takes a holistic approach to the life of the students and doesn’t reduce them to a moment from a test or homework assignment.”

Some districts surveyed by The Washington Times insist that equity grading has leveled the playing field for their minority students.

“This approach ensures that grades reflect a student’s readiness for the next course in the subject area, as well as for college, career and other postsecondary opportunities, by clearly showing what the student has learned,” said Keziah Moss, spokeswoman for the San Leandro Unified School District in Northern California, which introduced equity grading in 2016 and has a 50% Hispanic student population.

Maryland’s Frederick County Public Schools introduced equity grading in 2024-25, limiting homework to 10% of a student’s course grade and eliminating classroom participation as a graded category. 

Frederick’s policy “strongly encourages” middle and high school students to “do their best work the first time” on a test, but lets them retake it until they earn a C. It also “strongly encourages” students to “use their class time to complete assignments” on time.

Brandon Oland, a district spokesman, said Frederick officials have solicited feedback from teachers, administrators and parents “to inform ongoing refinement” of the system.

“For this reason, we have not seen extensive pushback,” Mr. Oland said. 

The future

According to some analysts, the inability of equity grading to solve deeper problems of racial inequality makes the trend unlikely to survive.

“These types of policies are ideologically motivated digressions from the essential problems,” said Steven Durlauf, a University of Chicago public policy professor and inequality researcher. “To address them, we need high-quality early childhood investment for all, higher investment in public education, and integration of schools and neighborhoods.”

Mitch Siegler, founder of the THINC Foundation, an educational transparency advocacy group, said the problem is that equity grading rarely lives up to its promise at a time when parents “have become much less sympathetic to buzzwords like equity.”

“In many applications, it seems to focus on awarding as many students as high a grade as possible without regard for performance,” said Mr. Siegler, who lives in San Diego. “We see it making inroads in certain progressive districts in states including California, Maryland, Michigan and Oregon, but not on a wider scale across the country.”

• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.