Sunday’s Virginian Pilot had an article about the awarding of zeros in local school systems.
In Suffolk, teachers are expected to make “every effort” to get students to make up the missing work, including notifying parents, before giving a zero on an assignment. In Chesapeake, zeros are automatic only when a student has cheated or skipped class. Virginia Beach principals are talking to their teachers about eliminating the zero altogether, and Norfolk schools have formed a committee to reconsider their grading policy.
One of the reasons offered for this: to reduce the number of students who fail.
One educator points out:
“We’re teaching them not only how to behave in school, we’re modeling the behavior they’ll need when they leave us. An employer won’t give a zero. They’ll say ‘Don’t come back to work.’ “
Others disagree:
“If you get too many zeros and you finish a semester with a 40 average, that doesn’t give kids a lot of hope.”
So my question: should teachers not give zero grades?
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
This can be a tough one for sure. You don’t want to penalize a student who starts a year incredibly weakly only to put forth a ton of effort and show they understand the material at the end, only to still fail and be forced to make up the year. At the same time, you don’t want students who never put in any effort getting through when they clearly do not understand the material but were able to float through because of artificial grade inflation.
My thoughts? I’d say hope that teachers and the schools recognize these differences and make sure that students who are ready to move forward do. It may not seem like a universal standard, and not everyone will have such good judgment to make such a decision, but there is a definite disadvantage to passing students who are not able to read anywhere close to their grade level or are unable to handle basic mathematical skills. Keep the zeroes, add in common sense.
I can understand giving a student a zero for an assignment they might have missed if they were skipping or cheated. In most work places, there would be rather hard consequences if you just didn’t show up or were caught breaking a copyright law (in other words, cheating).
At the same time, there are also workplaces where if you are actually doing your job well and usually hand your work in on time they might be willing to work with you if you honestly forgot a deadline. Of course there will be some sort of consequence for missing that deadline, but you’re probably not going to get fired if you continue to do good work and meet the rest of your deadlines.
I know at my high school if you missed an assignment for some reason you could usually turn it in for half credit. While a 50% is still failing and can do some harm to your overall grade, it’s a heck of a lot better than a 0.
Drawing closer to potentially reckless consequences for our educational system. Those of us married to or having teachers in our families understand this issue in “reality” has little to do with th student in terms of these committees. Its about the increased demands placed upon the system to produce competent students and reenforce the “citizens of the world” concept. Our students cannot and will not become competetive in the world economy as long as our school system administrators and unions for that matter see things through the lense of test scores, grading, a money. Certainly accredidation cannot be overstated, but it is the advancement and achievement of our young people that should come first. If you have not done the work or intentionally did not do the work; you have achieved nothing and deserve nothing. By giveing anyhting other than a zero or at the very least one opportunity to make the work up you do nothing for them by given them higher marks. People may think they are helping them, but in fact they are coddling them.
If they don’t give them a zero what are they going to do for work that is never handed in? Also, if the reason for doing this is to reduce the number of students who fail, what are we really accomplishing? Besides excusing and promoting illiteracy….
To me a zero indicates NO work or effort put forth by a student. If that is the case, then so be it! You reap what you sow. One of our problems in society today is that people do not accept responsibility for their actions. We do students and our society a disservice by “pushing” them thru school by giving them grades they don’t earn or deserve. What does this teach our youth?
BS
The no zero policy is a done deal.
We have been begging students to do the work where I work. All this policy is going to do is make teachers stay after school everyday for detention so the students can make up the missed assignments.
Of course there a 1 day delay in serving the detention since the parents must be notified. The teacher must use planning time to call parents during school hours or from home in the evening. If the student does not show for the detention will the process start all over? Since this might be a never ending cycle the easiest solution will end up being just pass them.
Where does it end? Never until we decide that education is more important than making our schools numbers look better than the ones in the next district. I can not wait until parents realize what has happened. They will not be happy and neither will the students who actually try.
Once again we are rewarding nothing with something.
show me a job that will pay you for doing nothing, or say – thats ok – go ahead and stay late today and get the job done now – even though we needed it done this morning – that’s just not going to happen.
with a no zero policy, students can do nothing for the year and still end up passing classes by putting forth minimal effort at the end. what does that say to the student who has been busting their rears since day one. if a student who generally does well messes up for a short time or “forgets” one assignment – it may affect their grade slightly and usually teachers will work with them. but by rewarding students who CHOOSE to do nothing, how are we preparing students for life after high school? does a junior or senior in high school benefit by getting credit for work they didn’t complete or even attempt? what’s next? forcing colleges or employers to do the same because the students can’t function in college or in the workplace?
As a school administrator, I believe using a No Zero policy to reduce the impact of one, or several, zero grades to allow a student to pass a class when the student otherwise would not have passed is wrong-minded. On the other hand, I believe not giving a zero so that the student had to produce work that met the original standard for a passing grade set by the teacher requires students to complete all assigned work, and to a higher standard than we currently allow with a D-. The consequences for not completing assigned work must be some kind of retention or repeat of the class until mastery of the subject matter is achieved.