Grading Parents

Review n 4
Name: Mauricio Catena
Article: Connecticut School District Wants Report Cards For Parents
Source: www.foxnews.com
Author:Catherine Donaldson-EvansLink: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,306003,00.html

A member of the Manchester Board of Education in Connecticut wants parents to be evaluated in some tasks, as feed their children properly and make them do the homework. "I tried to design something modest [measuring] things that virtually everybody would agree parents should do to help their kids," Steve Edwards says, and he also claims that he doesn´t want people to think that they are going to do a subjective evaluation.

In spite of his explanations, the idea has offended parents, and they are trying to fight the plan. As Jackie Madore, president of the Manchester Parent Teacher Association Town Council(PTA) said, the introduction of this plan will offend the whole educational community and will make parents be against the Board of Education.

Edwards plans to give parents a check with a positive or negative grade depending on how well they fulfill the needs of their children, and he wants to hand them out in the biannual parent-teacher conferences. People form the Connecticut Association of Boards of Educations say that they would prefer parents work with the boards of education on what is their role and to help them to assist their children rather than grading them. They are also against Edwards´s idea because according to their opinion it is intrusive and intimidating for parents if it is not applied in a sensible way.

This district is not the only one to consider using report cars for parents: Chicago district also implemented it but failed. Edwards is aware that this is a controversial issue, and that he doesn´t want people to consider it as something punitive for parents; according to him ,it is just a tool to identify people who need extra help to bring up their children.
One important percentage of childen who attend elementary school in this district are from lower socio-economic area and they are from single-parent homes or homes where both parents work long hours to earn money, according to Madore. She thinks that implementing this plan would be unfair for these people, because their economical restrictions will affect their good scores on the report cards. She is devising a plan of action to oppose to this idea.