Parent question about schools: Grades on the internet (1 Viewer)

[Hooper31]

I'm convinced that schools aren't making good use of the internet when it comes to communicating to parents with regard to assignments and grades. Data from the system we use indicates that majority of parents haven't logged into the system even once. I don't blame the parents. My thinking is that we're not providing them with the information that they want and can use.

Some teachers only sporadically update their grades, or infrequently. This drives me nuts. It only takes minutes to keep things up to date and real-time. My commitment to parents is that I update my grades daily. Further, I make sure new assignments are in the system so they can see what's due tomorrow. Even thought I do this daily I'm finding that most parents don't utilize the information.

There are some reliability and consistency issues as well. Different teachers using different systems with different rules leads to confusion.

I see valuable tools from the business world that I think could make a difference. What if you got a text message every time your kid had something marked as missing?

I'm looking for some feedback here. What can we do on our end to provide valuable information to parents? Further, what information is valuable?

 

[Grace Under Pressure]

It's a technology issue to some extent, but mainly a follow through issue. Make it easy to access, is there a simple app or website for parents? How often is the url communicated/reminder to use the service? What the school can do is make the information available, easy to access, and provide regular reminders of how to access the information. Then its gotta be on parents.

 

[ConnSKINS26]

I'm not a parent, but this would have made my life hell as a student. And by that, I mean it would have made me live up to my potential as a student on a day to day basis, rather than just when I knew progress reports were going out in the mail.

So in that regard, it can't be a bad thing.

But it seems like parents are less involved in their kids lives every year. That's obviously not the case for every family, but there are going to be some parents that just can't be bothered to follow stuff like this every day.

I think its a great tool though. Completely resets expectations in the families that utilize it, I bet.

 

[E-Z Glider]

My wife is all over this. She knows what grades they get on tests, quizzes, homework, report cards, etc. before they do. Luckily my kids get straight A's anyway. I tell her all the time how much I would have hated it as a kid.

Having homework assignments online would be nice. Seems like we're always calling someone (or someone is always calling us) for homework assignments.

 

[Hooper31]

It's a technology issue to some extent, but mainly a follow through issue. Make it easy to access, is there a simple app or website for parents? How often is the url communicated/reminder to use the service? What the school can do is make the information available, easy to access, and provide regular reminders of how to access the information. Then its gotta be on parents.

The system we use (Skyward) allows me to send a single email that goes out to all the parents from one class. It also allows me to attach an individualized progress report for their kid. This literally takes minutes. Early in the school year I do this weekly. Later in the year I only do it once every two or three weeks under the assumption that they are able to log in themselves (but that's not happening). Perhaps for me I'm enabling parents by sending the weekly email.

 

[guru_007]

Feedback from a parent.....

I think you nailed the issues on the head - two fold. First, some teachers do not update their grades to truly reflect the students current grade or progress in the class. Second, different teachers use different rules/systems in determining the grade so it's frustrating.

My children do well in school (of course they do, I'm a FBG). When they do have an issue with a class (scoring below 90), we start monitoring the test scores/grade online a bit more diligently. However, what we have found is either long stretches of no grades because one teacher does not put the grades up but once or twice a marking period, or another teacher marking down each assignment test score and we see straight A's....but that teacher weights certain scores so heavily that a single test or assignment score of 80 drags the entire marking period down. We'll see 96, 95, 90, 92, 81, 96, 99, 90, 95 and when the grade comes out at 88, we're like wtf.

I think the online resource is a good tool, but cannot come close to taking the place of simply keeping the lines of communication between parent and child and child/parent and teacher open.

Also, I think that 9 out of every 10 teachers at my childrens schools do a decent job of keeping the online score up-to-date, but the 1 bad apple that doesn't really spoils the entire bunch. Because it's ALWAYS the one class/teacher that my children have issue with that for some reason cannot keep the online scores even close to reflective as to how my child is doing in class.

 

[Buckychudd]

The state of North Carolina has standardized on something they call PowerSchool (not sure if it's a home grown application or a generally availible commercial one).

I find the tool to be cumbersome, and it doesn't really deliver the information I'm looking for. There are tabs that are pretty much completely empty and confusing, or at least never updated. Even the grade tab is fairly unhelpful for real details, although I'm not sure if this is due to the age of my children (just finished 3rd and 4th grade) or because the teachers don't update often. The big things that are missing besides the grade details is commentary on what they are working on now and upcoming tests/deliverables.

Honestly though, even if those things were added I'm not sure I would log in very often. For me, pushing this information to email/text/whatever works much better. I signed up for email updates for grades and I check those when they come. Problem is they use the same format as the portal and aren't very intuitive.

If you like I can send you a link and my login information for the portal and forward you some of the grade emails for a point of reference, however I just checked the Portal and they seem to have erased all the info from this past school year.

 

[VA703]

ahh the good ol days. intercept the mail then photoshop. good times

 

[Hooper31]

I think the online resource is a good tool, but cannot come close to taking the place of simply keeping the lines of communication between parent and child and child/parent and teacher open.

How do you feel about email as opposed to phone calls?

Would you feel weird about sending a teacher an email question? I get the impression that some parents think they're imposing on me when they send me an email. I wish I got more emails from parents.

 

[Hooper31]

ahh the good ol days. intercept the mail then photoshop. good times

I had a student logging into their parents email just to delete the progress report I sent out weekly. They more things change, the more they stay the same.

 

[guru_007]

I think the online resource is a good tool, but cannot come close to taking the place of simply keeping the lines of communication between parent and child and child/parent and teacher open.

How do you feel about email as opposed to phone calls?

Would you feel weird about sending a teacher an email question? I get the impression that some parents think they're imposing on me when they send me an email. I wish I got more emails from parents.

I have sent/received plenty of emails from teachers - works just fine for me.

I do feel that it can be an imposition to email for the petty day to day type of things like grading of assignments, test scores, etc, etc. I fully understand that a teacher has 5-6 classes per day with 20-30 students per class. But, if it's important enough that I feel something was mis-communicated to the student, or at least from the student to me as the parent, I have no issues dropping a teacher a note to see what's up. Most teachers have been very responsive and get back within a day or so.

 

[Hooper31]

The big things that are missing besides the grade details is commentary on what they are working on now and upcoming tests/deliverables.

Thanks for this input.

At the moment I'm planning on pushing our staff in this direction (well, as much as I can). I'm not so worried about grades. When I log into my daughters account at night I would much rather see what's due tomorrow more than what grade she got yesterday. Would also be nice if I were to log in and see large tests that are coming up soon.

 

[Ilov80s]

We have a pretty good system that I believe most of SE Michigan uses. It's a little clunky, but it's got scheduling, IEP, grades, behavior...pretty much everything and it works on mobile devices. There's student and parent versions. Our school has mandatory grading policy: summative assessments (tests, papers, major projects) are 75% of the grade, everything else is 25%. Teachers are required to update their gradebook once a week. I find we have two groups of parents: the stalkers that will email me 5 seconds after I enter an assignment and wonder why it's missing or if the student can get a retake. Then there are the parents that never go on. Some lie about how they are always checking, but they don't know I can see how many times they have logged in. My only complaint about it is that we aren't using it to say what the upcoming homework will be.

You mentioned texts for missing assignments, some parents phones would be blowing up all day long, it would be hilarious. We have a system that sends an automated call and/or text if a student is absent for a class (or the whole day). You would be surprised how many parents complain about annoying it is and question about getting removed from the service. Ummm how about you get your kid to stop skipping school all the time? That would end the calls and messages.

 

[Cjw_55106]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year. He wasn’t bad, but Cs started cropping up more often and he spent some Thursdays after school in detention. If you have 3 late assignments combined amongst all of your classes, you got a detention. I started using the online monitoring more often at that point and my frustration was as others have said, some teachers were on top of it, others were terrible at it. It got to the point of me having to email some teachers to see if the missing assignment was really missing or if they just hadn’t entered it into the system.



Overall, it was frustrating, but I know it’s a tool and ultimately the responsibility lies with my son. 8th grade is old enough to be responsible for your homework.



To answer the question, Id love to get email from the teachers when assignments were missing.

 

[Hooper31]

To answer the question, Id love to get email from the teachers when assignments were missing.

I'm thinking more of an automated text message to your phone.

 

[Cjw_55106]

To answer the question, Id love to get email from the teachers when assignments were missing.

I'm thinking more of an automated text message to your phone.

Thats fine too.

We did have a teacher that send out a weekly schedule via email, which was awesome. You always knew when the tests were and when assignments were due.

 

[Hooper31]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year.

I see this as a repetitive theme. I teach a pre-algebra class in our high school. Its full of students that just don't play the game of school well. At the start of each year I go through their files to try and learn a bit about the incoming group. I see 7th and 8th grade as the years where students that aren't going to make it start to have it show in their grades.

 

[Ilov80s]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year.

I see this as a repetitive theme. I teach a pre-algebra class in our high school. Its full of students that just don't play the game of school well. At the start of each year I go through their files to try and learn a bit about the incoming group. I see 7th and 8th grade as the years where students that aren't going to make it start to have it show in their grades.

Growing up is an odd thing. A big part of being an adult is being mature. You would think that we would progress towards maturity in some linear fashion. Instead, around 12, we take this hideous step backwards and display the immaturity of a toddler.

 

[Doug B]

It's a technology issue to some extent, but mainly a follow through issue. Make it easy to access, is there a simple app or website for parents? How often is the url communicated/reminder to use the service? What the school can do is make the information available, easy to access, and provide regular reminders of how to access the information.

Some notable issues at my daughter's school regarding e-communication of grades and assignments:

(a) Nothing was linked through the school's website.

(b) Teachers were free to use their own favored websites to e-communicate assignments. Most of the school used the same site for a few years running. But in my daughter's last year, a bunch of teachers went their own ways. I ended up never going online to check assignments in that last year, which made the school year a lot more difficult than it needed to be.

(c) Just where online these assignments could be found was not always clear. Yes, this info was distributed on paper once, at Open House early in the year. And yes, you could ask the teacher anytime you catch them on the phone (for some teachers, this was difficult). Not many teachers (yes, even now) use e-mail with parents, so that wasn't always available. Some frequentish notes home would've helped. Or hey -- maybe link it all to the school's website?

(d) E-communication of grades is centralized by the parish school system. There were still the usual problems with keeping things updated (some teachers rocked, some slacked). Didn't seem to be any accountability for teachers who didn't update the grades online frequently.

 

[Doug B]

However, what we have found is either long stretches of no grades because one teacher does not put the grades up but once or twice a marking period ...

See this all too often. Not all that exceptional to my experience ... maybe 1 in 3 teachers are like this at my daughter's former school.

 

[Ignoramus]

ahh the good ol days. intercept the mail then photoshop. good times

Yeah, the good ol days of using a digital scanner, sophisticated software and a high-quality color laser printer to alter my grades. Really takes me back to a simpler time.

 

[Doug B]

Would you feel weird about sending a teacher an email question? I get the impression that some parents think they're imposing on me when they send me an email. I wish I got more emails from parents.

Out of the dozen or so teachers my daughter had in elementary school (over the past seven years, mind you), only one really encouraged parents to communicate via e-mail. Only about three or four others even gave out an e-mail address, only to find that they rarely replied in a timely manner.

The main way of communicating with the rest of the teachers was normally to call the school office, leave a message for the teacher to call back, and then wait until after dismissal for a call-back. The hit rate for a same-day call-back was about 20%. Many teachers would invite parents to schedule one-on-one in-person conferences, but it typically took a few business days to get that arranged. A few teachers would talk to you impromptu if you just showed up early in the morning before homeroom.

All in all, it was more of a pain than it needed to be.

 

[Cjw_55106]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year.

I see this as a repetitive theme. I teach a pre-algebra class in our high school. Its full of students that just don't play the game of school well. At the start of each year I go through their files to try and learn a bit about the incoming group. I see 7th and 8th grade as the years where students that aren't going to make it start to have it show in their grades.

So he's not going to make it? Weekend project; teach boy the art of ditch digging.

 

[VA703]

ahh the good ol days. intercept the mail then photoshop. good times

Yeah, the good ol days of using a digital scanner, sophisticated software and a high-quality color laser printer to alter my grades. Really takes me back to a simpler time.

yeah buddy. nostalgia ftw

black&white report cards BTW

dot matrix

 

[Ilov80s]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year.

I see this as a repetitive theme. I teach a pre-algebra class in our high school. Its full of students that just don't play the game of school well. At the start of each year I go through their files to try and learn a bit about the incoming group. I see 7th and 8th grade as the years where students that aren't going to make it start to have it show in their grades.

So he's not going to make it? Weekend project; teach boy the art of ditch digging.

Your son is getting Cs? I wouldn't worry too much. The kids I deal with in HS that don't make it are usually failing just about every single class and it's been that way since middle school. Lots of the kids have grades in math that are <40%. I'm doing summer school right now with 18 incoming (well they hope to be incoming, some might be retained) freshman. To get chosen for summer school after 8th grade, you have to have failed every quarter of math and English during the school year.

 

[DCThunder]

Do teachers NOT give out email addresses to avoid getting email from parents about why little Noah/Emily is not constantly at the top of the class and ready to go Ivy League already?

 

[Ilov80s]

Do teachers NOT give out email addresses to avoid getting email from parents about why little Noah/Emily is not constantly at the top of the class and ready to go Ivy League already?

What teachers don't out email? We all put email on our syllabus, it's on the business cards we get and distribute regularly, it's on the school website. Many of us also have Twitter accounts we give out and I have even given some parents my cell phone number.

 

[Cjw_55106]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year.

I see this as a repetitive theme. I teach a pre-algebra class in our high school. Its full of students that just don't play the game of school well. At the start of each year I go through their files to try and learn a bit about the incoming group. I see 7th and 8th grade as the years where students that aren't going to make it start to have it show in their grades.

So he's not going to make it? Weekend project; teach boy the art of ditch digging.

Your son is getting Cs? I wouldn't worry too much. The kids I deal with in HS that don't make it are usually failing just about every single class and it's been that way since middle school. Lots of the kids have grades in math that are <40%. I'm doing summer school right now with 18 incoming (well they hope to be incoming, some might be retained) freshman. To get chosen for summer school after 8th grade, you have to have failed every quarter of math and English during the school year.

he's fine. I think he had two Cs. The rest were As and Bs.

 

[Hooper31]

My son was a great student until he hit eight grade this past year.

I see this as a repetitive theme. I teach a pre-algebra class in our high school. Its full of students that just don't play the game of school well. At the start of each year I go through their files to try and learn a bit about the incoming group. I see 7th and 8th grade as the years where students that aren't going to make it start to have it show in their grades.

So he's not going to make it? Weekend project; teach boy the art of ditch digging.

Your son is getting Cs? I wouldn't worry too much. The kids I deal with in HS that don't make it are usually failing just about every single class and it's been that way since middle school. Lots of the kids have grades in math that are <40%. I'm doing summer school right now with 18 incoming (well they hope to be incoming, some might be retained) freshman. To get chosen for summer school after 8th grade, you have to have failed every quarter of math and English during the school year.

he's fine. I think he had two Cs. The rest were As and Bs.

Good to hear. The kids I'm talking about are pretty much failing every class in middle school.

 

[Doug B]

What teachers don't out email? We all put email on our syllabus, it's on the business cards we get and distribute regularly, it's on the school website. Many of us also have Twitter accounts we give out and I have even given some parents my cell phone number.

See post #22 above. At least at one school, easy e-mail access to teachers cannot be counted on.

 

[Ilov80s]

What teachers don't out email? We all put email on our syllabus, it's on the business cards we get and distribute regularly, it's on the school website. Many of us also have Twitter accounts we give out and I have even given some parents my cell phone number.

See post #22 above. At least at one school, easy e-mail access to teachers cannot be counted on.

That is bizarre. I email with parents all the time and the turnaround is usually between 2 minutes and 2 hours. Maybe school expectations are drastically different in certain parts of country. I'm just confused completely.

 

[meatwad1]

I'm convinced that schools aren't making good use of the internet when it comes to communicating to parents with regard to assignments and grades. Data from the system we use indicates that majority of parents haven't logged into the system even once. I don't blame the parents. My thinking is that we're not providing them with the information that they want and can use.

Some teachers only sporadically update their grades, or infrequently. This drives me nuts. It only takes minutes to keep things up to date and real-time. My commitment to parents is that I update my grades daily. Further, I make sure new assignments are in the system so they can see what's due tomorrow. Even thought I do this daily I'm finding that most parents don't utilize the information.

There are some reliability and consistency issues as well. Different teachers using different systems with different rules leads to confusion.

I see valuable tools from the business world that I think could make a difference. What if you got a text message every time your kid had something marked as missing?

I'm looking for some feedback here. What can we do on our end to provide valuable information to parents? Further, what information is valuable?

You are right, it should be required that grades are updated daily, plus assignments posted. If I were running a school, I would add 30 mins to the school day and slot that time in.

Plus, texting works really well for parents you need to contact for missing stuff. Many parents either do not read email anymore or have too many emails to sift through. Everybody reads texts right away.

 

[Ilov80s]

I'm convinced that schools aren't making good use of the internet when it comes to communicating to parents with regard to assignments and grades. Data from the system we use indicates that majority of parents haven't logged into the system even once. I don't blame the parents. My thinking is that we're not providing them with the information that they want and can use.

Some teachers only sporadically update their grades, or infrequently. This drives me nuts. It only takes minutes to keep things up to date and real-time. My commitment to parents is that I update my grades daily. Further, I make sure new assignments are in the system so they can see what's due tomorrow. Even thought I do this daily I'm finding that most parents don't utilize the information.

There are some reliability and consistency issues as well. Different teachers using different systems with different rules leads to confusion.

I see valuable tools from the business world that I think could make a difference. What if you got a text message every time your kid had something marked as missing?

I'm looking for some feedback here. What can we do on our end to provide valuable information to parents? Further, what information is valuable?

You are right, it should be required that grades are updated daily, plus assignments posted. If I were running a school, I would add 30 mins to the school day and slot that time in.

Plus, texting works really well for parents you need to contact for missing stuff. Many parents either do not read email anymore or have too many emails to sift through. Everybody reads texts right away.

There isn't always something to add everyday though. Other assignments take days to grade. I think a week is more reasonable. In theory though, we agree that it's ridiculous for a school not to have rules on how often/the speed at which grades are updated.

 

[Hooper31]

Other assignments take days to grade.

This is a valid point, but I'm convinced that its not relevant. I don't think parents are so worried about the grades. I think the majority of them would rather know what has been assigned and when its due. Sure, the grades will need to be posted eventually, but I think being aware of what's assigned and when its due ahead of time would be a great tool for parents and one that would serve a better purpose.

Am I way off base here?

 

[Ilov80s]

Other assignments take days to grade.

This is a valid point, but I'm convinced that its not relevant. I don't think parents are so worried about the grades. I think the majority of them would rather know what has been assigned and when its due. Sure, the grades will need to be posted eventually, but I think being aware of what's assigned and when its due ahead of time would be a great tool for parents and one that would serve a better purpose.

Am I way off base here?

No, I completely agree with that part. Many teachers here use the calendar on their website which is easily found through the school website. Some even include the documents so if a kid lost the worksheet, a new copy can be printed and assignments can be submitted on the site as well. For some reason participation from students and parents is nearly zero. We need to find a way to get people to use it. We have parents complain about not knowing if there is HW, but then when directed to the site, there isn't a change in traffic and the kid usually continues to do their homework. If we could get more people to use it and justify it, I think we would mandate it for all staff.

All that said, the people that really should be using it are the students. This is high school and in most cases, I think the parents need to be making sure the responsibility for this stuff is falling on the kid. I will say most of the kids in our school check their grades and missing assignments a lot (especially on they phones). It's a great tool for them to monitor their progress.

 

[MindCrime]

I have two points of view on this, as I'm a parent of two elementary age boys, as well as a teacher in higher education that relies heavily on a LMS even for our on campus courses.

As a teacher, I'm usually communicating directly with students, not their parents, but as always, information in a timely manner is key. I grade and post results along with feedback as soon after an assignment that I can. Yes, things get in the way sometimes, but it's must to keep the students engaged.

As a parent, I want to see grades in a timely manner (within a week is fine, I just don't want to see all the grades populate at the end of the marking period). And, as a parent who is not in the classroom, I want to see more information about assignments. Unfortunately, most online portals that public schools use only report grades, and don't have anywhere for a teacher to post about upcoming assignments, etc.

Last year, my fourth grader had a teacher that would email out a PDF to all parents at the end of the week with info about the upcoming week, and it was awesome. Also, there would be notes about some long term projects and upcoming lessons. This, as a parent, was the most useful, and I would reply weekly with a thank you, because it helped me keep my son on track.

 

[leftcoastguy7]

Quick question for the teachers:

I'm a parent and I email you a question at 9am on a school day. What is a reasonable time to expect a response? How much time should pass before emailing you again if I didn't get a response?

 

[AcerFC]

Quick question for the teachers:

I'm a parent and I email you a question at 9am on a school day. What is a reasonable time to expect a response? How much time should pass before emailing you again if I didn't get a response?

if you know for a fact that the teacher was in school, a reasonable return time would be the end of the day. I rarely take longer than 30 minutes to respond to email. However, maybe they werent in. If no response by the end of the school day tomorrow, email again. Unless it is important

 

[Hooper31]

Quick question for the teachers:

I'm a parent and I email you a question at 9am on a school day. What is a reasonable time to expect a response? How much time should pass before emailing you again if I didn't get a response?

if you know for a fact that the teacher was in school, a reasonable return time would be the end of the day. I rarely take longer than 30 minutes to respond to email. However, maybe they werent in. If no response by the end of the school day tomorrow, email again. Unless it is important

This sounds reasonable to me. That said, it would be my top priority for the day. I wish I got more email from parents.

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

The problem these days is we are too soft. Why not post class rank, grades, etc. on a continual basis. Give the kids a chance to compete against their classmates as opposed to everyone feeling good about their anonymous average or below average standing. Would it discourage poor performers? I hope so. Maybe it would spur them on to greatness. If not, perhaps it would teach them the valuable lesson that their whole life they will be judged against others and the strong will survive. The high performers would be spurred onto competing even harder to achieve top ranking.

 

[Hooper31]

The problem these days is we are too soft. Why not post class rank, grades, etc. on a continual basis. Give the kids a chance to compete against their classmates as opposed to everyone feeling good about their anonymous average or below average standing. Would it discourage poor performers? I hope so. Maybe it would spur them on to greatness. If not, perhaps it would teach them the valuable lesson that their whole life they will be judged against others and the strong will survive. The high performers would be spurred onto competing even harder to achieve top ranking.

Are you talking about "shaming" students into performing better?

 

[Judge Smails]

I'm not a parent, but this would have made my life hell as a student. And by that, I mean it would have made me live up to my potential as a student on a day to day basis, rather than just when I knew progress reports were going out in the mail.

So in that regard, it can't be a bad thing.

But it seems like parents are less involved in their kids lives every year. That's obviously not the case for every family, but there are going to be some parents that just can't be bothered to follow stuff like this every day.

I think its a great tool though. Completely resets expectations in the families that utilize it, I bet.

On the contrary. Era of helicopter parents.

 

[Hooper31]

On the contrary. Era of helicopter parents.

For every single helicopter parent we have quite a few 100% hands-off parents that don't appear to give a ####.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

I'm not a parent, but this would have made my life hell as a student. And by that, I mean it would have made me live up to my potential as a student on a day to day basis, rather than just when I knew progress reports were going out in the mail.

So in that regard, it can't be a bad thing.

But it seems like parents are less involved in their kids lives every year. That's obviously not the case for every family, but there are going to be some parents that just can't be bothered to follow stuff like this every day.

I think its a great tool though. Completely resets expectations in the families that utilize it, I bet.

On the contrary. Era of helicopter parents.

Not really.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

Quick question for the teachers:

I'm a parent and I email you a question at 9am on a school day. What is a reasonable time to expect a response? How much time should pass before emailing you again if I didn't get a response?

I usually get back to parents within 30 minutes. BUT I teach middle school which means I have 3-5 minutes between periods that I can use to respond to emails. Elementary teachers usually don't have those passing periods. My students also work on their own a lot of time and I can check my emails then as well.

 

[Officer Pete Malloy]

My school has a great system where the parents can access ALL of their child's grades online. Not just overall grades in each subject but grades for each assignment.

 

[Mr. Know-It-All]

The problem these days is we are too soft. Why not post class rank, grades, etc. on a continual basis. Give the kids a chance to compete against their classmates as opposed to everyone feeling good about their anonymous average or below average standing. Would it discourage poor performers? I hope so. Maybe it would spur them on to greatness. If not, perhaps it would teach them the valuable lesson that their whole life they will be judged against others and the strong will survive. The high performers would be spurred onto competing even harder to achieve top ranking.

Are you talking about "shaming" students into performing better?

Shaming is an interesting way to put it. If they perform well then there would be no shame. If they perform poorly, maybe "shame" would make them try harder. The problem is that there are a myriad of excuses as to why students do not perform. Lack of structure at home, insufficient support financially or educationally, environment in school or at home, learning disability, etc. So it really isn't an even playing field. We used to have class ranking on a regular basis but now it is hard to go that route due to a system that wants to reward everyone for attendance as opposed to performance. At least in Nebraska, it is saddening to see the number of kids that are promoted through the ranks without even a basic concept of fundamentals. High school graduates without basic skills in math or reading are common. What then do they pursue from there? Minimum wage jobs at best, but more likely in need of government assistance.

 

[Ilov80s]

My school has a great system where the parents can access ALL of their child's grades online. Not just overall grades in each subject but grades for each assignment.

Yeah I assumed every school has that, but maybe not.

 

[Ilov80s]

The problem these days is we are too soft. Why not post class rank, grades, etc. on a continual basis. Give the kids a chance to compete against their classmates as opposed to everyone feeling good about their anonymous average or below average standing. Would it discourage poor performers? I hope so. Maybe it would spur them on to greatness. If not, perhaps it would teach them the valuable lesson that their whole life they will be judged against others and the strong will survive. The high performers would be spurred onto competing even harder to achieve top ranking.

Lots of teachers post class grades, but it is by student number and not name. The kids know where they stand relative to everyone else, but the other kids don't (however, if you asked the kids to be pick out who has the 5 highest and 5 lowest grades in class, they would probably do so easily...it usually isn't hard to ID just from observing class). Also, when the kids and parents go online to look at their GPA or credits, it also gives their class rank. While it may not be public like you want, it is available for kids to know for themselves how they compare. I think the part you are missing is that the kids doing poorly don't care or at least not enough to actually do anything about it. Some would even find it a point of honor if they could claim they had the lowest grade.

Quick question for the teachers:

I'm a parent and I email you a question at 9am on a school day. What is a reasonable time to expect a response? How much time should pass before emailing you again if I didn't get a response?

I usually respond within 2 hours or so, depending on when the email comes and what my schedule is for the day. I definitely respond by the end of the day unless: A)the email came right at the end of the day and I just missed it or it required me to have to track something down

B)if you are a parent that regularly exchanges emails with me and the response will require more preparation than I am able to complete that day (I trust that since we communicate regularly, the parent knows I won't be blowing them off and will respond when I have the answers they are looking for)

this is rare, only recall two times:

C) parent that starts emailing me so frequently that I had to put larger gaps in my responses just to slow them down. One mom was sending me over 10 emails a day. Mostly about very minor things...some would just be responses to an email from me saying, "haha lol...oh btw did Joey have his planner? Sometimes he leaves it on the kitchen table =)". Her kid is 16, I am not going into daily emails on what he brought to school each day.

 

[El Floppo]

Great thread.