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The modern education system is certainly interesting. When I was growing up, if you didn’t do an assignment, you didn’t receive credit for it. In other words, you got a zero. Similarly, if you failed an assignment, you got the grade that you earned.

That’s just the way things used to be. You reaped the rewards of the effort you put into an assignment. Now, it’s not really like that. Teachers are blocked from failing their students, even if they’re struggling and would probably benefit from it. Teacher and TikToker Julie Michelle shared an example of this when only two of her 30 students completed their homework, but she was powerless to do anything about it.

A teacher did her best to hide her frustration from her students and celebrate the two kids out of 30 who actually did their work.

In a video that’s been viewed 2.5 million times, Julie basically confronted her class about their lack of participation with their math homework. “So, I sent home a math practice, okay?” she began. “It was not a lot. It was a few pages of multiplication facts.” In the text Julie put over the video, she added, “Frustrated to say the least. They had two weeks to finish this. I am so tired of kids who do absolutely nothing.”

Although Julie was majorly frustrated, she tried not to take this feeling out on the students. Instead, she said, “The point is, I tried to put the focus on REWARDING and PRAISING the two who did it because they deserve it!!” Julie let those two students pick out two candy bars from a box she had and led the rest of the class in clapping for them. “I’m proud of you. It wasn’t hard, right?” she said to them.

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In a follow-up video, the teacher shared more information about why she was so upset with her class.

Julie’s frustration really went beyond just the kids not doing their homework. She was also ticked off about how powerless she was to hold them accountable for it. In another video, she shared, “People who aren’t teachers don’t realize how kids have changed drastically to where we cannot give zeros as teachers. Most of the schools that I have heard from, like, you cannot fail a student even if they are failing.”

Julie wanted to give her students another chance to prove themselves after so many had neglected to complete their math homework. She said she handed out “packets” similar to the original assignment. “There are kids who are still working on it, and it’s been over a month,” she revealed.

“Yeah, kids are different now,” she said. “I think that video helped a lot of people realize, like, in schools, like, what we as teachers are so limited in doing. Like, we cannot fail them. We cannot give them zeros.”

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The concept of not giving students zeros has been gaining traction.

Tim Walker reported on the implementation of policies from districts that barred teachers from giving students zeros for the National Education Association. He said that many of these policies ban grades below 50% for students who do something to complete an assignment because it means they showed a “good faith effort.”

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Theresa Mitchell Dudley, the president of the Prince George’s County Educators’ Association, was concerned. “How is this making students college and career ready when we are not teaching the basic skills of being timely with your work?” she questioned. “Our teachers are professional educators, and each educator has a class system for late work. Is your name on a paper ‘good faith?’”

Dudley is right. Teachers are the ones who should be in control of their classrooms, not bureaucratic agencies making policy decisions. There certainly has to be some sort of standardization so students are on equal footing, but eliminating the possibility of them receiving zeros for work they don’t even complete doesn’t seem like the answer. Teachers like Julie have every right to be frustrated.

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Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.