Throughout my years as a teacher, principal and district administrator, grading in schools was like the old joke about the weather: everyone complained, no one did anything. Students, families and faculty knew that no teachers graded the same. Two students in adjacent Algebra I rooms could have identical understanding yet receive different grades because of variation in late-work penalties, tardies, extra credit or participation points. The variability was understandable — most teachers receive little preparation for how to grade — but it was also confounding; district leaders’ attempts to increase consistency in grading often would devolve into accusations of administrative overreach and threats to teacher autonomy.

Today, we know how to improve grading. CSBA’s governance brief “Research-Supported Strategies to Improve the Accuracy and Fairness of Grades” reviews research on the fairness, accuracy and consistency of common grading practices. Based on research, the brief recommends that nonacademic factors (e.g., attendance, effort, behavior, work habits) not be incorporated into the academic grade, which is intended to be an indicator of a student’s mastery of academic content. These practices aren’t radical. They are a set of common-sense approaches that have been around for decades, built on a straightforward premise: a student’s grades should report only what they’ve learned. Perhaps surprisingly, that’s not what grades commonly do.

Traditional grading combines information about a student’s academic understanding with a century-old approach of managing students through points, where every activity, behavior and assignment in a class is rewarded: “Turn in your signed syllabus for five points” or “No notes, lose points.” By contrast, improved grading practices — whether called standards-based, competency-based or most recently, “equitable grading” — is singularly focused on describing a student’s understanding of course content, not non-academic behaviors or circumstances.

Improved grading ensures that grades reflect what students know, pure and simple. That simplicity is why it’s not difficult to find research showing that these practices work and that grading created during the Industrial Revolution is inaccurate, undermines instruction and reduces rigor. Dozens of studies across secondary schools and college classrooms show that updated grading practices strengthen the accuracy and fairness of grades and support increased learning and motivation.

With this evidence, and thousands of K-12 and college teachers using these improved grading practices, why is there hostility and suspicion? Why do we still hear claims that they lower standards or demotivate students, or see improved grading folded into broadside critiques of public schools?

First, people oversimplify and misunderstand improved grading practices. For example, standards-based and equitable grading allow multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know, similar to the professional world: when we have to demonstrate competency — medical boards, the driver’s test, bar exam, teacher credentialing — we get multiple chances. But it’s less demanding for skeptics to recast this practice as “unlimited retakes,” a distortion of a research-supported grading practice.

Similarly, traditional grading encourages giving students points for behaviors, such as speaking during a class discussion, which builds a classroom culture of compliance. By contrast, improved grading asks teachers to build student agency and responsibility, generating discussions by teaching students to recognize the value of participation in their learning. Improved grading approaches require reimagining instruction. Equitable grading and standards-based grading build student agency and support 21st-century skills like self-regulation, but unless we are explicit and clear about these practices when we lead them, they can be misunderstood, even twisted into provocative oversimplifications.

To be clear: standards-based and equitable grading do not endorse limitless retakes, excuse late work and ignore homework, or adopt a percentage scale that “gives credit for free.” Evidence from thousands of classrooms shows that improved practices increase accuracy and fairness of grades, build student accountability and responsibility, use mathematically sound grading scales, and augment academic rigor. My organization created a website and a “Common Misconceptions” document specifically to equip education leaders with language to respond to misinformation.

Second, district leaders can fuel pushback by trying to fix grading quickly through policy. District leaders would never launch a literacy initiative by announcing, “Every teacher must use close reading” and expect positive results; they design multi-year initiatives to train and support teachers to implement the full battery of research-based literacy practices. Yet grading reform is often attempted by administrative fiat — “All teachers must use a 50 percent minimum,” for example — without engaging or educating teachers, students and families. Predictably, confusion and resentment follow, along with incorrect implementation and even retrenchment. Grading reform is not a technical fix; when treated like one, it produces inflammatory sound bites and backlash. When leaders command grading rules, teachers resist; when leaders invite and support learning about the why, what and how of equitable grading, teachers effectively use and champion the practices.

Third — and perhaps most concerning — traditional grading allows students, teachers, parents, all of us, to avoid accountability. Grade inflation in secondary schools is rising even as increasing numbers of college freshmen need remedial coursework; traditional grading practices contribute to both. When students earn points for compliant behaviors, it is more difficult to see if and when students have mastered course content. Traditional grading obscures students’ true academic performance, allowing us to promote unprepared students and construct a type of institutional self-deception. More equitable, standards-based grading makes our teachers’ student achievement data more valid, reliable and truthful, holding us more accountable and earning more trust and confidence from parents and college admissions officers.

Perhaps the most powerful evidence supporting improved grading comes from students themselves, which I have collected throughout years of research. They describe how school has changed from being a game of Pac-Man-style point collection to learning, where teachers are partners, laser-focused on students meeting curricular outcomes. The mischaracterizations and hollow attacks on improved grading will continue, but as education leaders trusted for our expertise and judgment, we must base our reporting practices on the theoretical and classroom evidence that justify standards-based and equitable grading.