¶ The Problem with Zeros and Initial Policy Impact
This is Jen Roberts, and I teach high school English in San Diego. Welcome to School of Practice on Edutopia Radio.
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Early in my career I had a student who was an absolutely brilliant writer. She wrote short stories, she loved writing fantasy, and she along with that was just a voracious reader.
That's Tyler Rablin. This memory is from one of his first years as a high school language arts teacher in Washington.
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She had one of the lowest grades in my class because while she was doing all of this incredible reading and writing, she had so many missing assignments. And those were pulling her grades so far down that it looked like she didn't know anything. And I had a conversation with her where I let her know, hey, you have a failing grade in this class.
Teachers, you know this scenario is all too familiar. We have all been there. Kids with so much potential whose grades don't reflect anywhere close to what they're capable of.
That was kind of a wake-up call to me of my grading practices were sending her a very unfair and unclear message about her skills and abilities as a reader and writer.
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Where we share what works inside real classrooms. I'm Kristen Leong, an editor at Edutopia, and I'm also a former middle school ELA teacher. Today we're talking about one strategy in grading equity, eliminating zeros. Well-meaning efforts to more accurately assess learning have led some schools to nix zeros from the gradebook. A popular replacement is setting a new floor, such as 50%, as the lowest score a student can receive.
But that strategy can have unintended negative consequences for both teachers and students. When we asked our community to share some of their experiences with no zero policies in their own classrooms, the majority of the voicemails in our inbox reflected a deep frustration.
It became a game to the students about what was the bare minimum.
Kids no longer try
Right.
they would bring me work and say Is this worth a fifty?
And the grade then looks like they're close to passing when they have done
Pretty much.
Nothing.
This policy hurts students. I think it's a drag on any school. I
actually left the school district because of it.
demoralized. Maybe you relate to some of these sentiments, especially at the end of the school year, when so much attention turns to final grade.
¶ Understanding Zeros' Mathematical Flaws and Resistance
Our guest today is Tyler Rablin, and he's going to help us parse through some of the complications of eliminating zeros from the gradebook. Tyler spent thirteen years as a high school ELA teacher and instructional coach, and he's also served as a middle school interim principal in a school where a no zeros policy was in place.
He's thought a lot about grading practices. He's even written a book about it. It's called Hacking Student Motivation Five Assessment Strategies That Boost Learning Progression and Build Student Confidence. Let's dive in. Tyler, let's start with the basics. We're talking about eliminating zeros today. What is the problem with zeros?
I mean mathematically, the tricky part with a zero is if a student gets a zero on an assignment, if they had fourteen equally weighted assignments, they need 1385% just to get a B. So that one zero out of fourteen assignments. can hold them back, you know, if they only get twelve B's moving forward, they end up with a C.
And to me, my goal with grading practices, they have to be accurate. I am trying to accurately report what a student knows, and that zero significantly outweighs all of the other evidence that I have of success on the student's end. So I would say for me that's the mathematical reason why zeros can be problematic in school.
So a single zero can really derail students' final grade, even if it happened at the very beginning of the semester. So walk us through it. What does it actually look like in the classroom when zeros are eliminated?
I think there is a shortcut way that is a helpful temporary step. Where you instead of giving a zero, use a 50% minimum threshold, or you change that threshold of what that lowest number could be just to avoid that. Mathematical seesaw scenario. And I think that's a helpful step, but for me, the more important part of getting rid of zeros is.
questioning the way that we use averaging in our grading practices in schools. That's the reason the zero is a problem is because we're choosing to average all of the points over a set period of time and that average is how we determine the final grade. In that system, a student who struggles or make mistakes early, those mistakes and early struggles will be held against them in the end, even if they are successful at the end of a term.
So you're saying eliminating zeros can be a helpful temporary step in addressing one part of the larger grading equity puzzle. As we heard from those frustrated teachers at the top of the episode, when used as a shortcut, it can lead to some unintended consequences. In your experience, Tyler, when zeros are eliminated from the gradebook. What are some new problems that can occur?
You end up with students who learn behaviors and patterns of work that game that system. You know, you give a student an assignment and if they don't want to do it, there's kind of that mental battle of Well, I could just not do it, and then I just gotta do the next couple and I'll be okay. That is the concern that I see personally, but I also know a lot of teachers are experiencing in schools that have employed a fifty percent minimum without changing anything else.
According to a 2025 study that surveyed a thousand K-12 teachers around the US, at least 25% of schools have now eliminated zeros from their gradebook. This is of course a notable chunk, but still the minority. And yet this issue seems to be striking a real nerve with almost all teachers. Why do you think that is?
This is a lever they feel like they have to convince students to be productive, to attempt to train them to have positive habits. And when that gets taken away and nothing is put in place, I think that's where even teachers who aren't told you can't use zeros, they're still like the big picture of schooling Something is going in the wrong direction, they feel like. And I think that's where you see a lot of people get worked up about it.
How did your colleagues react when the fifty percent minimum policy was instituted?
It's is always met with pushback. And I've sat in meetings where they've talked about changing it. Should it stay? Should it go? It's always a hot button issue because oftentimes there's not a conversation ahead of it as to what is the purpose of grade. Right. And I think if we don't have that conversation explicitly, taking away zeros, all of a sudden half the group is like, Wait, but I use grades to convince students to do things and you're taking that away from me.
And they're not being told this is what we're putting back to support you. And then the other half is excited because they're like, yep, grades should just be what kids know. We understand the math behind zeros.
And I think
Some of the concern for teachers in schools where it's been mandated, you know, I I always like to assume it's always done in good faith, but I also recognize there's pressure on administrators to minimize the number of F's they have in their schools, right? And that's
sort of a reality. It's an accountability measure that's sometimes tied to funding, sometimes tied to school improvement. And I think there is a perception from teachers in schools where it's handed down that the purpose of this is to keep students from getting Fs and to sort of cook the books a little bit and make the school's data look better. I would love to say that that's never the case. I think
There's probably a reality that it is the case in certain places. And I think that makes teachers really question the practice in general of what is the purpose? Is this really for the benefit of students or is there another ulterior motive? And so I think that's where a lot of the frustration comes.
¶ Real-World Grading Experiences and Standards
Do you see these equitable grading policies ever masking issues with students learning or their development by inflating grades?
That is one of my worries with it as a you know a long term solution. That's why I you know I don't mind it in sort of a formative or a practice. Of putting a fifty percent minimum there. But when we're talking about a fifty percent minimum on whether or not a student understands a standard, I think this is where, you know, as a high school teacher.
I see students at club.
they never really know what they're struggling with and eventually they hit a wall where they go, I did fine earlier and now I don't know any of this stuff because the learning need was masked previously. And now they're missing some background knowledge that they didn't know they were missing, but is crucial for them to be successful moving forward.
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After the break, we're going to hear from two teachers from our community who had very different experiences with a No Zeros policy. Tyler's thoughts might surprise you. Okay, be right back.
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Okay, Tyler, I'm gonna play a clip from a teacher who called into our hotline about her very tough experience with a fifty percent minimum in her school. Let's take a listen.
Hi, my name is Cheyenne and my school does do the fifty percent minimum grading policy. We actually grade on a four point scale rubric. And if a student puts their name on it, they automatically get a one whether they have filled in any of the questions or not. Even more so to add on to the fifty percent minimum grade policy. We allow retakes for anybody who gets an eighty nine or lower. The staff members who originally proposed this teach in sixth grade. However, this does not translate
as successfully in the eighth grade where I teach. So our eighth graders have become very apathetic to the grading policy and education somewhat as a whole.
Tyler, what are your thoughts on what Cheyenne's experiencing?
The distinction between sixth grade and eighth grade is really interesting. You know, students are smart. And if they're in a system for three years, they're gonna figure it out. I really liked in Cheyenne's voice note, there was talk about a zero to four scale. That usually is a stepping stone into the next step of a standards-based approach. And it sounds like Cheyenne is stuck in a middle ground. I understand the reasoning for giving students a point with their name on it. It helps.
balance out that unbalanced seesaw, but it does make me worry that it's putting the emphasis on points for points' sake and not grades as a reflection of learning. And so as a result. It's meshing together two things, a traditional averaging points over time and a standards-based approach. And when we're stuck in the middle is where we have to do some of these really interesting sort of backflips to make everything work and be as equitable as possible.
You said the zero to four scale is a stepping stone in the right direction, but the next step is a standards-based approach. Can you give us a quick definition of standards-based grid?
For me, standards-based grading is really about organizing all of your data around set standards. So instead of focusing on, you know, assignment one, these are the points, assignment two, these are the points, it's saying Those assignments all connect to this specific standard. My gradebook is going to communicate that standard and how well students are doing with it. It's driven by the same philosophy of minimizing the impact of mistakes.
Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Now let's hear from our second teacher who had a very different experience from Cheyenne.
Hello. My name is Samantha. And I've been teaching for about twelve years in Tucson, Arizona. I know it's a very hot topic and a lot of teachers really, really hate it. So I would never really want to like convince other teachers that they should love it, but I will say that I personally do love it. And really there's two parts to it. The first part is the minimum fifty percent grading.
But the part that kind of goes with it is the weighting of the class. The way that I weight my class, it's eighty percent is the summative assessment. In my case I teach science, so unit exams. The other twenty percent is kind of the day to day practice assignments. It's not impossible to fail the class. I definitely have some students that can end up failing, but technically there's more ways to pass than to fail, which I really like.
I think a lot of time, you know, just because a student didn't turn in work, does that mean they did zero percent of the work or that they know zero percent of the content? Not necessarily. You know, a lot of my students just forget to turn it in or they were absent for part of it.
What do you think about what Samantha's saying here in support of the fifty percent minimum and why she's found it to be useful?
I really like the distinction in the grading categories. I think this is one of the ways that a 50% minimum can be used. in a way that teachers are Uh, supportive of, but also still holding students accountable for learning. If we have a formative category that counts in the gradebook and it's just tons and tons of assignments.
You know, if a student's gonna have five opportunities to show what they know, and instead of saying, You missed that assignment, go back and do a retake or a redo or whatever, every time that happens, the 50% minimum can actually be helpful for teachers too to be able to say, listen, you got a 50% on that. It's not going to kill you in the long term. We can move forward. We can have another shot at this. So I I liked that distinction in there.
¶ Strategies for Student Accountability and Motivation
Okay, Tyler, let's shift now to one of your big ideas to increase student accountability. For teachers who have a 50% minimum or for teachers who still use zeros but are having challenges with student motivation, you are a big advocate of a late work contract. We're gonna get into how that contract works, but first, what led you to implement this idea in your classroom?
You know, when I saw a student struggling with turning work in on time, what I saw is either a student who didn't understand the content and thus was trying to avoid it, or a student who just hadn't developed a super productive executive functioning skills to be able to keep on top of all their work, to get their work turned in. And so my late work contract, the idea behind it was more of a behavioral support more than a content.
How would you know when it was time to initiate this late work contract with a student and what did that look like once it was in motion?
The way that I recorded assignments in my gradebook was simply it was an unweighted category that either said missing, late, or completed. The idea behind it was once a student demonstrated a pattern where they were struggling to turn in assignments.
There was this late work contract, it was an actual piece of paper. The student kept track of it in their folder. What they had to do is they had to take it home to get it signed so that they hopefully had a conversation with the people taking care of them at home. They would bring that back to school. When a student was on that contract, their grade changed to an incomplete overall. They had to show up for extra support time with me twice.
And the student was then responsible for tracking their assignments and getting them turned in. And then once all the criteria had been met, then the student would bring it back to me and I would sign it off and their grade would revert back to what it was with no actual long term penalty in their in their grade overall.
And did you have a threshold like once you get to X missing assignments, then the contract goes into play?
Yeah, and that number really changed a lot. At times I would play with just saying five assignments total, other times I would do it by percentage. That got a little tricky for me to keep track of, but
It usually ended up being a number. And then also from sort of an administrative level, if a student had X number of missing assignments, I was able to trigger some of our school systems, either put them in a support period, or at times would actually make them ineligible for activities if it got too far.
Okay, so to summarize, the late work contract is a strategy you use to hold students accountable for turning in work. It's a paper contract with a list of missing assignments. And this contract requires students to meet with you for extra support. And until they turn in their assignments, they can even be benched from extracurricular activities.
Yep.
We're gonna link to your template for this contract in the show notes so listeners can download and edit their own. Moving beyond the late work contract though, what other strategies do you have for holding students accountable while increasing buy-in for other graded items?
The other piece of it that's more important is how are we leveraging intrinsic elements of how humans operate? Like I know if I have to give a presentation on something, as opposed to just turn in a report to my boss. That creates a very different urgency in me to get that done and do well on it. So I think even things like,
If students are in an art class and they're working on some sort of design or some sort of philosophy of art, whatever it is, you know, come up and show it to the teacher and let's have a conversation about it. I think the interpersonal and relational elements. I don't want to downplay how important that those are.
Have you seen schools or districts where these policies are working really well? And if so, what are they getting right?
I can't think of an example where these equitable grading practices have stayed static and it's been successful. I can think of plenty of examples of schools that are saying What we're doing with grading is problematic for students, but then they don't stop there and they say, what's the next step? Where do we go from here?
I got to visit Lindsay Unified School District down in California. Their focus was if a student comes to us and is struggling and then grows, how do we ensure that our grading practices celebrate that? And I think there's a lot of ways to do it. A lot of them just
just use a standards-based approach that said recent and consistent evidence is what we're going to use to determine. And that point, a 50% minimum doesn't necessarily need to exist if the student can move on from their mistake and be successful later.
¶ Fostering Hope Through Grading Practices
Now, Tyler, say you're a school admin and you've instituted a 50% minimum grading policy. How do you determine success? Where does the data come in here?
The most important thing, and this is actually something that we had an instructional coach and some of our leadership in a middle school do. is sit down and talk with students. They pulled out a bunch of our eighth graders one year and had one on one conversations because, you know, you can look at your F rate, you can look at test scores, you can look at all these things. That data is great, but the problem is Immediate changes don't impact that data for years down the road.
So I think it's so important that if you're gonna make changes, you sit down and have conversations with students in meaningful ways where you say, I really just wanna hear your side of the story.
You know, I'm thinking back to the student you mentioned in our opening who is a prolific reader and writer, but she said she wasn't good at English because of her grade. Tyler, what changes did you end up making?
I ended up having a conversation with my administrator where I just asked, what can I do? This isn't working. This isn't accurate. He just said, does she know the things that you are expecting students to know in your class? And simplifying it to that made me really rethink everything about migrating practices. And that spurred. Really a summer of a ton of reading and a ton of research and just exploring some of the options out there.
And I came back in the fall with a proposal. It was imperfect and it has been revised many times since then, but a proposal for my administrator of this is how I want to approach grading this year, this is why. And then I started really trying to implement some of the things that I had learned about over the summer.
Okay, so heading into summer is actually a great time for teachers to reflect on how their grade books are working for or against them. My last question for you is what is a better lens we can use to solve the problem of zeros in the gradebook?
The conversation around zeros in the grade book really is a conversation about hope for students. And so I think the lens that I would love for us to have with this conversation is less about the zero and more about how do our grading practices help students believe in their possibility of success. emotional aspect of taking away zeros and adding a 50%. But I think every teacher agrees I want kids Be able to struggle, be able to make mistakes, and still be able to believe.
Moving forward.
And every person, not just student, every person needs that to believe there's more success in their future. If I've never felt success in my past or seen it or had it communicated to me clearly, How do I believe that there's success in my future? And I think that's the biggest question I hope we're always asking about our grading practices.
Tyler, it was excellent talking with you today. Thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you so much for having me on.
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Here are three things I'm taking away from this conversation. 1. When implemented in isolation, a 50% minimum can create unintended side effects that zap student motivation and undermine the whole idea of equitable grading. If zeros are no longer part of your gradebook, remember that this is just one piece of a larger puzzle. Keep in mind that building strong relationships with students alongside rethinking how grades are weighted over the course of a term are essential pieces too.
2. A late work contract can be really helpful in increasing student accountability, whether or not you currently have a 50% minimum in your classroom. To make this strategy most effective, get buy-in from your school administrators. 3. If you're looking to rework your gradebook, heading into summer is a great time to start thinking about what it would look like. Big changes in classroom policies work best for everyone during times of transition.
Special thanks to Tyler Rablin. We'll link to his Edutopia articles about eliminating zeros, along with his late work contract, in the show notes. We love hearing from you. Send us your stories, ideas, and questions, and let us know what you'd like us to cover in future episodes. Our email is podcasts with an s at edutopia.org.
If you liked this episode, follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please leave us a rating and a review. This helps others find our show. This episode was produced by Anne Margaret Warner and edited by me. Our engineer is Doug Keeley and our supervising editors are Sarah Gonser and Steve Merrill. I'm Kristen Leong. We'll see you again soon.
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