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"Providing students sympathy or diminished expectations doesn't answer the challenges of inequity. Providing them engagement, rigorous work, and support during the school day does. Effective grading policies are an essential part of combining rigorous expectations with meaningful feedback."

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"If nothing else, the shift to remote learning has highlighted the deep-seated inequity inherent in traditional grades. It has become expressly clear, perhaps now more than ever, the advantage afforded to students with access to resources and support compared to those without such access."

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"Research supports the impact of nongraded feedback to focus students on learning rather than performance (Butler & Mordecai, 1986), and when the psychological and intellectual "load" on students and their families is so significant, it is important that schools lean on the side of support and learning rather than competition and high-stakes performance.

"Principals working in schools that had already implemented a competency-based system (and thus, grading reforms) were, overall, not interested in making use of a pass/fail system. Principals in traditional schools, on the other hand, were very interested in such a policy.  A pass/fail system is a fail for our kids, and a fail for our school. It serves to remind us that we don’t have a reliable grading system."

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"According to Assistant Superintendent Sonal Patel, her team moved forward with the goal of continuing to make learning meaningful while emphasizing equity. Their solutions included switching to a pass/incomplete system at secondary schools and focusing on narrative feedback at elementary schools."

"In the work of making grading equitable, schools should initially shift culture through the tenets that focus on classroom practice, rather than starting with a change of the symbols that will be used on report cards. Begin redesign efforts by working on common scoring criteria, assessment design, calibration of scoring, opportunities for low-stakes practice and feedback, and systems of academic support. "​