As a retired teacher I have seen guidance counselors lobby hard for revised grades (failing to passing or lower to higher to raise GPA). The rational was usually "He/she tried really hard" followed by some sob story about economic or social disadvantage .
I have also seen administrators modify grades without informing the reporting teacher first. The funny thing there was that our online gradebooks allowed us to go back and re-enter the correct grade. If we did that, the administrators would back off.
It wasn't in New York, it was in Arizona. My brother and sister-in-law are both teachers and it is the same, for them, in Oklahoma.
That will always be the case if graduation rates are a metric for school district evaluation.
Here in Florida we has FCAT tests that students must pass in order to graduate middle school and then High School. It was instituted back in the 90’s when my daughter was in middle school. I told one of her teachers then that what would happen is the teachers would wind up teaching the tests in order to get their own evals up. That’s exactly what has happened..........