Every school gives out extra credit for students who fall behind in class or are struggling with the subject being taught. In some schools, the amount of extra credit given to students is unprecedented and gives others an unfair advantage over others academically. So my question is this: Should extra credit be given out in all academic classes?
Before you answer this question in your head, think carefully. Extra credit should be given out in school classes, but do it right. My answer to this question is “yes,” but within reason and here's why:

As I mentioned before, extra credit given out in classes gives an unfair advantage to other students to thrive and the others to struggle if the teacher does not mention the opportunity to all students. The teacher must state the extra credit opportunity to all of his or her students or else the credit goes against the values of the work done in class.

You could argue that the teacher doesn't have to mention the topic nor provide answer to an extra credit question if the correct answer is located in some provided information given in class such as a text book per say. But really, if the answer is not assigned to be looked at, examined, or even said in class at all during the course of the year. Is it really fair to assign that as an extra credit question on a test? This happens in many classes and especially in math when a student could easily do extra problems worth extra points given to him or her by the teacher while the other students do not know about it.

This has happened to me countless times during my school years as my friends go from a B- to an A from extra credit and I was astonished by where they got all of their points from in the 100 point scale but then I realized teachers gave them extra credit while the rest of us had never gotten that information or even a chance to have extra credit. This allows the student to thrive on work that the other students were not given the chance to take which is clearly unjustifying a proper grade given by the teacher. In order to have extra credit, the teacher must clearly mention it to his or her students and base it off of the work taught  in class. And this brings me to my next reason.

A lot of times, teachers base their extra credit questions on random topics or fun facts that were not taught nor mentioned during the year that only few would be able to answer due to personal experiences. Evidence of teachers in all schools can be shone asking questions on tests such as “What was the score on last night's VCU game” or personal questions from the teacher for pointless reasons such as “What year was I born.” Obviously, asking these kinds of questions on an academic test is absurd.

Yes it is true, a teacher could argue that they didn't even need to add extra credit in the first place so why should the topic matter. Well by that same logic, you could say that the government doesn't need to make the laws for our country, but does it matter what the laws are about and abide by? Of course it does. As it has been said: If you're going to add any extra credit in schoolwork, then you have to do it correctly. I have had personal experience with this as well. Once I had a history test in school, my teacher put an extra credit question saying, “What was the exact score on last night's Notre Dame basketball game.” Obviously several people in class including me did not know the answer for countless reasons such as not being Notre dame fan or just not being basketball fans in general.

This gives an unfair advantage as well to the students who have not had personal experiences with the topic and are unable to answer the questions given.  To fix this and have extra credit, the topic must be based around what has been taught during the class and mentioned by the teacher at least once or twice.

teacher should give a reasonable amount of extra credit in class. The teacher cannot give out 20 extra points for a one word question answer. It’s unfair to other students and fairly obvious on report cards looked at by teachers and parents. Evidence to this could be shone on any report card of a student who gained 20 extra credit points compared to a student who did not gain these points. The result of this could be as little as a teacher looking over a student's grade compared to other students  or as big as colleges looking over a student’s grade and limiting them to which schools they could go to based on their performance to other students with the extra credit points.
However it is true that schools and teachers go by appropriate guidelines and usually do not give out too many points to an extreme amount, but those who do should now how much it not only affects the student but the school as well.

Studies shone in the New York Times dispatch have been made seeing how much extra credit plays a role in students grades and the results were incomprehensible. In some schools, extra credit could play a role in the overall quarter grade by as much as 15-20%. This could differentiate between 2-3 whole letter grades which is incredibly substantial. Extra credit should be given out but at the right amount at the right time.

In conclusion, extra credit helps a lot but sometimes it helps too much and is difficult for others to comprehend on report cards unless given right which should be done. To all teachers: if you want to give out extra credit, go ahead. I applaud you, but if you do. Be sure to give extra credit out wisely because a very long series of issues and confrontations could occur not far behind.

Extra credit should be given out but correctly and most importantly: It's there to help. Teachers give it out to aid their students and help them thrive in the classroom. Extra credit is a privilege, not a right, so let's treat it so.