School credit ‘recovery’ plans are apparently being misused for racial equity — and disadvantaging students even more

An educational program meant to help students make up for their mistakes in school is apparently being misused by racial equity proponents and leading to children receiving high grades for very little work.

Credit recovery is a practice in which students, usually of high-school age, are given a second chance to learn a subject and prove their proficiency in that subject outside of normal class time.

‘Credit recovery is the scandal hiding in plain sight in American education.’

Proponents say the practice can be very positive and effective when students fail because of circumstances out of their control, such as a death in the family or sudden financial loss and duress.

But in recent years, the program has seemingly been manipulated by diversity, equity, and inclusion advocates, resulting in even worse educational outcomes. Rather than giving students a second chance to prove themselves, the policy is being abused to unfairly allow failing students to pass on to the next grade level without actually completing learning objectives.

Some manage to complete the “recovery” work through make-up courses that can last a few hours or even a few minutes.

“The credit recovery classes have become, in many instances, get-out-of-jail-free cards for students who are chronically absent, truant, or are chronic disruptions in class,” wrote Mike DiMatteo, a former teacher, for the Freedom in Education organization.

“They’re receiving the same credit, but doing significantly less work — often as little as one-third to one-half of what a traditional course requires,” he continued. “The evidence supports these concerns: Critics have raised alarms when students complete a semester of work in a matter of weeks or even days. In one egregious example, the NCAA discovered students receiving grades and credits for a semester’s worth of work in a matter of days, sometimes hours, and in some cases just minutes.”

DiMatteo cited one anecdote of a student who received an A- and a year’s worth of credit in biology after only one four-hour recovery class split over two days.

“In Los Angeles, which reported that 16,000 students took at least one credit recovery course in 2016-2017, a student described raising his biology grade from an F to a C in one week,” he added.

One study from 2020 found that credit recovery policies were being used to help disadvantaged black students but that often they ended up hurting rather than helping the students.

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Robert Pondiscio, a teacher and American Enterprise Institute senior fellow, calls it an educational “scandal.”

“Credit recovery is the scandal hiding in plain sight in American education,” he wrote. “When districts say they’ve raised graduation rates to pre-COVID levels, ask what percentage of graduates finished with one or more classes completed with ‘credit recovery.'”

The policy is just one part of the puzzle explaining how public schools are seemingly failing children more and more, as standardized testing shows across the nation.

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