How ‘equity grading’ is destroying America’s children—and why academic damage during COVID cannot be “swept under the rug”

A high school senior walks across the graduation stage, diploma in hand, beaming with pride. The crowd cheers, parents snap photos, and the school district pats itself on the back for another “success story.” But there’s one problem—this student can barely read. They’ve never mastered basic algebra. Their writing skills are so poor that a home-schooled kid in middle school could outperform them. And yet, their transcript says they are college-ready. How? Because the system lied to them and teachers pushed the kid along, not wanting to hold him back or hurt his feelings. This happened not just once, but every single day of their academic career. Teachers went along to get along, inflating the child’s grades under the banner of “equity” while robbing them of the one thing they truly needed: the truth.

This isn’t a dystopian fiction. It’s happening right now in half of America’s schools, where “grading for equity” policies—no zeros, unlimited retakes, no late penalties, no homework, no participation requirements—have turned report cards into meaningless propaganda and diplomas into certificates of attendance. A bombshell new survey from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and Rand Corporation reveals what teachers have been screaming for years: This is academic fraud. And the victims? An entire generation of children who are being pushed through the system unprepared, unskilled, and utterly betrayed by the adults charged with educating them.

Key points:

• “Equity grading”—policies like no zeros, unlimited retakes, and no late penalties—is now used in over 50% of U.S. schools, despite 81% of teachers opposing key aspects of it.
• Real-world failure is inevitable: Students given automatic 50% grades for doing nothing are graduating illiterate, unable to pass state exams, and wholly unprepared for college or careers.
• Teachers call it what it is—fraud. One New York teacher revealed a student who got B’s all year but scored a 43% on the state Regents exam.
• The system is rigged to inflate graduation rates, not educate. In Hartford, Connecticut, an illiterate senior sued her district after being pushed into college despite being functionally unable to read or write.
• “Equity” is the Trojan horse. These policies were sold as a way to close racial achievement gaps, but teachers say they destroy motivation, reward laziness, and set students up for failure.
• Some districts are backtracking. After disastrous results, Atlanta and Las Vegas are reversing course—but the damage is already done.
• The root cause? Years of school closures, masking, social isolation, psychiatric drugging, and vaccine injuries have left kids mentally and academically broken—and now, the system is lowering standards instead of fixing the problem.

The great lie: How “equity” became a weapon against excellence

Let’s be brutally honest: Public education in America is a dumpster fire. After two years of COVID school closures, where children were masked, isolated, and force-fed propaganda through Zoom screens, the results were predictable: plummeting test scores, soaring mental illness, and an epidemic of learning disabilities. But instead of admitting failure and rebuilding foundational skills, the education establishment did what it always does—it doubled down on the fraud.

Enter “grading for equity,” a Orwellian scheme that claims to eliminate bias by eliminating standards. The playbook, written by Joe Feldman (a former teacher turned consultant who profits from selling these policies to schools), argues that traditional grading is “racist” because it penalizes laziness, rewards effort, and expects proficiency. His solution? Abolish deadlines. Ban zeros. Let students retake tests until they pass. And never, ever fail a child—no matter how little they learn.

In Schenectady, New York, where 95% of freshmen are three or more grade levels behind in math, the district adopted Feldman’s policies last fall. The result? Teachers are now forced to give students grades they don’t earn. Christopher Ognibene, a social studies teacher, watched as a student coasted on B’s all year—only to bomb the state Regents exam with a 43%. “Watered-down report cards and transcripts mean nothing if you are left unprepared academically for college,” he told The Epoch Times. “And there are due dates in the real world—it doesn’t matter where you go after high school.”

But Schenectady isn’t an outlier. Half of U.S. schools now use at least one of these grade-inflation tactics, according to the Fordham-Rand survey. One in four districts use three or more. And the most common? The “do nothing, get a 50%” rule—a policy so insulting to hardworking students that even some pro-equity activists admit it’s demoralizing.

“We have gone to the ‘do nothing, get a 50’ grade policy,” one anonymous teacher wrote in the survey. “Students have figured out that, if they work hard for a quarter (usually the first), they can coast the rest of the year and get a D.”

And what happens when a D is the new passing grade? You get illiterate high school graduates. Like Aleysha Ortiz in Hartford, Connecticut, who sued her school district after realizing she’d been pushed through the system despite being functionally unable to read or write. Her method for completing assignments? Talk-to-text on her phone. Her district’s response? A 60% passing grade and a diploma.

“It seems to me this is allowed simply to embellish graduation rates,” said Carol Gale, president of the Hartford Federation of Teachers. And she’s right. This isn’t education. It’s a scam.

The real agenda: Hiding failure, not fixing it

So why are schools doing this? For decades, public education has been a political battleground, where teachers’ unions, activist groups, and bureaucrats push policies that sound noble but deliver disaster. “Grading for equity” is just the latest Trojan horse—a way to mask catastrophic learning loss while blaming “systemic racism” for the failures of progressive education policies.

Let’s rewind:

• 2020-2021: Schools shut down, kids were masked, isolated, and forced onto screens for 12+ hours a day. The result? The largest drop in test scores in U.S. history.
• 2021-2022: Instead of intensive remediation, schools lowered standards, eliminated honors tracks, and pushed “social-emotional learning” (a euphemism for psychological indoctrination).
• 2023-2024: With reading and math scores still in freefall, districts adopt “equity grading” to inflate GPAs and boost graduation rates—without actually educating students.

These equity policies don’t help struggling students. They destroy motivation. Why bother trying if you get a 50% for doing nothing? Why study if you can retake tests until you pass? Why show up if attendance doesn’t matter?

“Everybody wants a silver bullet,” Ognibene said. “But no book is going to fix what’s happening.”

And what is happening? A generation of kids who can’t think, can’t write, and can’t compete. Kids who spend seven hours a day on TikTok but can’t read a basic contract. Kids who graduate high school but can’t pass a community college placement test. Kids who believe they’re “college material”—until they fail out in their first semester.

Sources include:

Zerohedge.com

TheEpochTimes.com

GoBoardDocs.com [PDF]