It’s been a couple years since I first read Grading for Equity, attended its 3-day workshop, and wrote a series of posts the in winter of 2022 on grading practices that scholars have shown to be inequitable. One perplexing thing, though, is that I do find myself around teachers who implement those inequitable practices daily, yet by all observable accounts still have high levels of equity! I’m not suggesting that the scholars are wrong. I’m also not suggesting that teachers should continue using those practices. Instead, I want to revisit why points are so bad, and then consider what else is at play in the classroom that might keep things equitable (to a limited extent). Oh, and this post doesn’t get into ANYTHING about dealing with points from a teacher bookkeeping perspective, which is enough of a hassle on its own. Even the teacher who somehow hasn’t heard of the word “equity” would benefit from ditching points altogether.

What Do Researchers Say?
The findings from studies in Alfie Kohn’s Punished By Rewards (1993) should be plenty, and what isn’t cited in there beyond its 1999 revision appears in Grading for Equity (2018). In sum, we’re now at year 60 of research on the disastrous effects of “do this, get that” practices, and have over 100 years of grading research overall. Here’s a general summary of the findings supported over and over by multiple studies, with citations given for a few foundational ones:

• The 100-point scale is bonkers. Beginning with Starch (1913), researchers have found that teachers can’t reliably discriminate such minute differences, with math teachers showing even more variance in how they evaluate student work according to the 100-point scale than English teachers! This is why the use of “minimum grading,” or starting the scale at 50, is recommended, along with using fewer levels. I push for 55, 65, 75, 85, 95 and 100. Beyond that, the 100-point scale itself is mathematically inequitable (i.e., a whopping 0-59 points are considered failing?!).
• Academic(?) currency. With points, learning is more of a transaction than a genuine human pursuit, with students “earning” their wages in the form of grades. N.B. employees rarely lose wages in the workforce, unlike students losing points and getting lower grades. Perhaps a better analogy would be gambling! This is inequitable for a host of reasons, but mainly because teachers determine what counts towards points, which often includes non-academic behaviors influenced by implicit bias.
• Dependency. Since the teacher controls the points, students become less independent, doing certain things (or behaving in certain ways) to “earn” those points from the teacher. This is the likely culprit for the whole “…BuT iF I DoN’t GrAdE/sCoRe It, StUdEnTs WoN’t Do It.” Yeah, no kidding! This adds inequity to existing power dynamics that educators attempt to dismantle.
• Threat of low grades. Rather than doing work to learn, or even “earn” high grades in the learning-as-transaction system, points get students doing work just to avoid getting low grades! This kind of motivation is punitive, discourages risk-taking, and encourages cheating. The “motivational F” doesn’t actually get students doing work, either. It just appears so (for some students, sometimes). Low grades only appear to work because those Fs and zeros are accompanied by other stuff, like teacher reminders, and comments (i.e., feedback). Oh, and guess who won’t be motivated by low grades at all? The lowest performers. This use of points is particularly inequitable for the most vulnerable students (e.g., least confident, struggling).
• Loss of points sends a bad message. Deducting points during the learning process suggests that mistakes are bad. Educators should expect mistakes while learning is taking place. This is another inequitable punishment targeting the most vulnerable students, such as those who take longer to learn, and exacerbates unwanted perfectionism among the strongest ones overly concerned about having anything fewer than 100 points.
• When points are seen, students ignore feedback (Butler & Nisan, 1986; Butler, 1987). When feedback is presenting in addition to points, eyes go right to the points, and skip the feedback. I’ve never heard anyone advocate for no feedback under most circumstances. Never. The only time to skip it is when students are struggling sooooo much that they wouldn’t be able to act upon the feedback. Instead, these students need direct instruction. Points create inequity by denying struggling students the actionable feedback they need, while reinforcing their low self-efficacy with a (low) number. Meanwhile, the strongest students get an ego boost from a (high) number, while also learning nothing from potentially useful feedback.
• Low standards. On the opposite end of things, when points are “awarded” for completion—and no other criteria whatsoever—students get high grades for “fluff” assignments. You know these grading categories, where students are all but guaranteed to have maximum scores for that portion of the course grade, sometimes just by showing up to class. When people complain about “grade inflation,” these categories are actually a real contributor to conservative and neo-liberal talking points about achievement, and grades. Besides, the “fluff” categories are just one part of the grading picture, and sometimes not much at all. That guaranteed-success category of 10-25% certainly appeals to students, especially if the other 75-90% of the grade is much less-reasonable, or higher stakes. In these cases, teachers mistakenly think they’re “rewarding” the learning process, when in fact they’re creating a kind of high grade buffer for more serious/higher standard learning categories. A teacher once told me that her kids would fail math if she didn’t grade homework for completion. Students who *need* a portion of their grade padded like this means they haven’t learned the content. Also, what about the students who aren’t confident enough to put something down on paper, or turn anything in at all? This creates inequity, once again, for the most vulnerable students.

That’s a lot, right there, to be convinced of ditching grades. But let’s hear what teachers have to say, first.

What Do Teachers Say?
Teachers have told me that points are easy, and reliable. Students earn points for completing assignments; easy. If students don’t complete them, the teacher can point to that as a source of improvement; reliable. Since points are assigned to reasonable tasks, there are high levels of success. Students know what to expect, and build confidence as a result.

I admit that it all sounds fine. So how can all the negative effects be going on in classrooms where students are turning in their work, learning, getting high grades, and feeling good? Before looking at what teachers have said above, highlighted in purple, I’m wondering “what else is going on in a class like this?” Does the teacher have any other policies that would sort of correct the problems of points? For example, retakes and no late-work penalties would be big ones, although teachers could still be taking off points during the learning process for mistakes. Teachers could still be “awarding” points for completion after a due date, adding to that “fluff.” I’d also like to know if everything that’s been assigned points takes place during class time. This would be an equity boost considering that the teacher has approximately zero ability to monitor what goes on at home, and/or during the student’s free time outside of class. So for teachers who maintain equity, AND use points, I wonder if they’ve kept most of the learning to class time. Aside from those questions I have, let’s unpack what teachers have told me. This is what I see:

• easy to implement
• reliable practice
• reasonable work
• high levels of success
• clear expectations
• confidence

There’s actually quite a bit of positive stuff in those bullet points, right? Here’s the thing, though…you don’t need points to accomplish any of that! You can very easily assign reasonable work and provide feedback without points, reliably, that ensures high student success with clear expectations that build confidence. Just no points! For a practical way to do this, see this post. So, all of these things could be increasing equity, AND the negative effects of a “do this, get that” point system could be at play all at the same time. If things are equitable…enough(?)…then why change anything?

Distance & Time
Perhaps teachers don’t feel any need to get rid of their point systems because they don’t see the lingering, increasing negative effects of those systems. The education system generally has poor longitudinal data for any given school. Just think how high schools have no idea how successful they truly are beyond knowing who got into which college. Sure, a kid might come back to share their new college experience, but what about ALL the school’s alumn? How prepared were they? Which practices really helped them learn? Which didn’t? What do they value about learning? The revolving door nature of education means schools have a very hard time keeping up with anything other than what’s happening NOW, with maybe an eye or two on some longer term projects. And that’s just high school. How often do middle school admin meet with high schools to see how their kids are doing? Never.

So, do high school graduates value learning for its own sake? Or, do they find themselves in college finding ways to meet course requirements and get that 4.0, with learning as an afterthought? Research would back up the latter. But what’s that mean to the high school teacher whose students are long gone? Not much. It’s a hidden problem, and it’s too late.

Bandwidth For Change
I’ve had very few conversations with teachers trying to eliminate points—with fidelity, and not just out of reluctance—who then revert to old ways claiming it didn’t work. That doesn’t really happen. The majority of teachers just haven’t tried. They’re content with the equity they currently have, though unknown in levels. On the one hand, that’s OK. Teaching is demanding, and maybe there’s no bandwidth for change. On the other hand, that’s kind of the job, right? In the pursuit of implementing best practices, being more culturally-responsive, and increasing equity in the classroom, you’re gonna have to make changes; some massive. Grading is 100% one of those massive changes that every teacher should expect to undergo, at least at the individual level (if not schoolwide at some point).

So, I straddle the line between understanding how unreasonable teaching can be—completely encouraging teachers to do whatever they need to sustain their career—while also recognizing that this profession is in need of dire adjustments. The result is that I keep listening, AND also have limited empathy for certain practices. Holding onto points is so unnecessary, and the fix is so simple it almost hurts. I think the way forward is to encourage teachers to keep and even highlight all the positive outcomes from their points system while helping them find a way to improve that system and increase equity.