The following is an op-ed from Bryce Fiedler, director of CALN.
When I first learned about so-called “grade floors,” I struggled to believe it.
A friend — who at the time served on a local South Carolina school board — told me that teachers in his district were barred from giving students below a 50% on their quarterly report cards.
The mandate came from the top, buried somewhere in the district’s grading manual and enabled by a local policy. Few could tell you how long it had been there, or how it arrived in the first place. What mattered is that teachers’ hands were tied from giving accurate grades. The message to students was clear: Effort was optional.
The school board’s decision to repeal the practice in 2024 became the catalyst for broader reform, revealing the prevalence of grade floors in other districts and laying the groundwork for change. Last month, South Carolina became the first state in the nation to legislatively ban grade floors.
To read the full piece in the Carolina Journal, click here.