NYC Mayor De Blasio’s New Grading System Gives Wealthy Students an Advantage

The NYC Department of Education announced a landmark grading policy Tuesday morning that will affect 1.1 million students throughout the city. The policy outlines new grading systems for elementary, middle, and high school students, and states that no student will receive a failing grade during distance learning.

In NYC schools, elementary and middle school students will earn marks of either “Meets Standards” or “Needs Improvement,” though middle school students may also receive “Course in Progress” should they need additional time to complete a course. High schools, on the other hand, will maintain their existing grading scale. Once final grades have been issued, students will have the option to convert any passing grade to ‘CR,’ indicating that credit has been earned, but not factoring into a student’s GPA. Students who fail a class will earn a mark of “course in progress” and have the option to complete the course over the summer or fall. 

NYC DOE’s new plan protects students directly affected by the pandemic as those unable to maintain their grades will not see their GPAs suffer and high marks will still be reflected on transcripts and by GPAs. Most importantly, these decisions will be made at the student’s discretion. As the DOE’s chancellor Richard Carranze writes in his letter to parents in NYC schools;  “… we believe that the final policy we are issuing emphasizes flexibility and patience for students in these unprecedented times, while also keeping students engaged without penalty for the trauma they may be experiencing. It maintains clear expectations that acknowledge each individual student’s experience, and creates a consistent, equitable system across all schools. The policy seeks to minimize stress on families and students, while still providing next year’s teachers with the information they need about an individual student’s progress toward achieving standards.”

NYC’s Department of Education is in good company. A series of elite preparatory schools including Trinity, Andover, Exeter, Deerfield, and St. Paul have adopted policies in which students will either receive credit or no credit through distance learning. It is expected that many more private schools will follow their lead. International Baccalaureate students will receive final grades based on previous coursework and predicted grades, rather than on performance on final exams, which have now been cancelled.

Though NYC’s policy protects high school students, it inadvertently places middle school students in a precarious position, as they rely on their strong grades to earn acceptance into highly competitive public and private high schools. However, all middle school students applying to high school will have equal standing across the board, at least in terms of their grades for the spring semester. No student with a “Meets Standards” risks being compared to their peers who may have chosen to receive letter or numerical grades, as will be the case for high school students. 

Confronted with a problem of an unprecedented nature, the Board of Education established a new grading system in an effort to protect all students, no matter their situation. Under ordinary circumstances, this new and drastically different grading system might have the potential to demonstrate that positive reinforcement provides sufficient motivation for students to study diligently and earn high grades. 

However, these are not ordinary circumstances. For many students, their ability to maintain or improve their grades will be yet another reflection of socio-economic status. Those whose parents have white-collar jobs and are working remotely will have considerably less trouble adjusting to remote learning and continuing to earn good grades. Those whose parents are essential workers working in less than safe situations are more likely to endure difficult and traumatic situations, and end up opting for covered grades. 

In terms of college applications, it will be incredibly difficult to differentiate between those students who elected for covered grades due to extenuating circumstances and those who simply lost motivation. Ideally, college admissions officers will pay special attention to information on applications that may clue them into these circumstances, such as zip code, parents’ level of education, and occupation. However, these are not perfect indicators and students cannot rely solely on the attentiveness and diligence of their college admissions officer to explain away the achievement gap between them and their peers.

The “Additional Information” section of the Common Application will become a crucial place in which students will have the opportunity to be their own best advocates, and explain their situations to their college admissions officers. Here, students who struggled with difficult quarantine circumstances can inform colleges of their unique situations, and provide crucial context to the numbers on their application. 

That being said, colleges and universities will face their most unusual application cycle this coming fall. Between online AP exams, delayed and possibly even remote standardized tests, and transcripts with grades ranging from to pass/fail to normal letter or numerical scores, admissions officers will have to look past numbers in order to curate the perfect class of 2025.