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Lawmaker Wants Teachers To Grade Parents
March 30, 2011
If teachers are being graded for their student’s performance, is it only fair that parents also be held accountable for how well-prepared the student is?
That’s the question a House committee pondered Tuesday when it took up HB 255, by Rep. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland. The bill would require teachers in grades Pre-K through 3 to grade parents on their involvement, including factors like homework completion, whether the child is physically prepared for class and their absences.
“It’s not grading whether the parent fed a three-course breakfast or what time they went to bed, but is that child prepared for school?” Stargel said. “It’s mostly so we can identify those parents who are not involved.”
Stargel said the intent is not to punish those parents, but to figure out what can be done to motivate or help them.
“We all know a more involved parent (has) a more successful student,” Stargel said.
Some lawmakers questioned whether the bill was inappropriately targeting parents who do not have significant amounts of time to devote to homework preparation and test quizzing.
“How will the grading system be fair to that parent who wants to have that involvement but his or her financial situation won’t allow that to happen?” asked Rep. Charles Chestnut, D-Gainesville.
The Florida Parent Teacher Association spoke out against the bill. “Mandating one more school accountability issue is not the best idea at this time,” said Cindy Gerhardt, the President of Florida PTA. “We love the bill, but we don’t feel that the teacher having to grade the parent is really going to improve that relationship.”
The concept of grading parents has caught a lot of flack, Stargel admitted, and said whether it would work is “up for debate.”
“What I do like about a grade is it is a clear measure of your accountability,” Stargel said. Lawmakers said charter schools have long required parents to sign contracts promising a certain level of monitoring and involvement.
The concept of grading parents is not totally foreign to Florida public schools. In rural Gadsden County, near Tallahassee, the school district has adopted a grading system called “Different Levels of Parent Involvement.”
Gadsden County Parent Services Coordinator Audrey Lewis told the committee the Gadsden initially considered a more formal “grade” but that parents pushed back.
By just changing the name to the DLOPI acronym, Lewis said, more parents came on board.
The program now ranks parents on five different categories, from attendance, to communication with teachers, tutoring, volunteer effort and leadership. “Parent involvement is not all about carnivals and bake sales,” Lewis said.
The bill appears unlikely to pass this year, though it may provide a preview of the Legislature’s education agenda for next year. The House committee took no vote on the bill Tuesday and with just about a month to go in the session and no movement on a Senate companion, its prospects appear slim.
By Lilly Rockwell
The News Service of Florida
Comments
27 Responses to “Lawmaker Wants Teachers To Grade Parents”
My child has missed a lot of days due to illness that is very well documented. She has problems with some math work. I understand it very well, but when I try to explain it to her, she doesn’t understand my method. I sent the teacher a note asking her to help my daughter. She sent me one back saying that the only reason she is having problems is because of her absences and that if she needs help, SHE has to ask for it, not me. So my daughter asked her for help and she was told to “tell your mother that she will have to send me a note”. I will send her another note asking for help, but in the meantime, my daughter is falling behind because her teacher is giving us the run around on it.
Is this grading going to take into consideration the mental and physical capacity of the parents? I don’t like it.
I have a one income family with 3 school age kids. i work 8 to 10 hrs a day 5 to 6 days a week so there is really no time to be involved with school for me. My wife is involved with it on a daily basis. the school is operated during the times i have to work so in order for me to be involved with anything my kids do is hard. But there are other ways to be involved with your kids. i started coaching little league in 2001 and at that time my oldest kid was 6 months old. There are ways to be involved not just with your own kids but others as well. They need to see positive role models in scjool and on the fields of play. I also started coaching football 3 years ago and i don’t even have a little boy all i have is girls. SOONER OR LATER WE ALL HAVE TO WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT THE KIDS ARE WHAT MATTERS THE MOST AND WE NEED TO BE THERE FOR ALL OF THEM NOT JUST OUR OWN.
JOE summed it all UP!!!!!!
I believe we are moving towards a Communist government everyday. As a parent, I think a parent plays a big role in children’s success at anything they do. School is just a small portion of their life. To me, just trying to raise a child in this idiot world is more challenging than what school has to offer; however, a lot of the challenges of the world comes from their peers at school. I am not a teacher (thank God) but teachers do not need another load added to their lap, since our fine government decided to grade them upon success of FCAT. We are headed down a long road with more communistic ways of life. This is so unfare to teachers and to those parents who do their best. It takes both for a child to be successful; however, all a student needs is a foundation layed before them and a lot of positive re-enforcement. I understand not every child can get these characteristics, but parents should not be graded nor punished. Just remember how a parent is raising their children is probably how they were raised and it would take a major world turning to trace back and try to change everyone’s parenting skills. Just remember this is why we are still here, none of us are perfect and when GOD gets ready for perfection we will all be gone in a blink of an eye. Pray for our teachers and our parents!!!!!!
Parents should not need a grade unless you are going to pay them as well as you pay the Teachers !
What Joe said! Ah-men!!!!!
As a educator I agree parents should be held accountable for their child academic failure. I’m so tired of hearing it’s the teacher fault. It sure is not! I believe learning starts at home and carries over to school. Teachers and parents need to be partners in making sure children succeed academically. So yes I think it would be awesome if parents receive a grade after all they play a valuable part in their child life.
well if they had teaching testing back in the 70’s not many teachers would pass-unless it involved sports–I made b’s and c’s without opeining any books after the 9th grade-go figure– we spent the time on the field and in the gym to win the games, so now it has caught up with me because the homework my child brings home is beyond anything I can help with. But that doesn’t mean I’m a bad parent
It was YOUR choice to bring a child into the world. Shouldn’t it be YOUR responsibility to make sure your child is as well prepared as possible to succeed? And yes, you are paid by the government for having children. Let us not forget the nice per-child tax deduction you get to take every single year. These tax credits result in many, many people who have little income getting whopping tax refunds. Do you realize that close to 50% of the population pays ZERO federal income tax because of this?
Those of us without children are subsidizing your child rearing, so as a a childless taxpayer I should be entitled to know that my tax dollars are being spent wisely. The purpose of education is not only to benefit the child but also to benefit society at large. If I am seeing no benefit shouldn’t I be allowed to reinvest my money elsewhere so I may see a return in the future?
what joe said…
well lets break this down real simple like…..
when I start getting paid as a parent with tax dollars, for doing my job as a parent then the government can, and might have a right to do a “performance eval” on me.
otherwise we as citizens are only asking for evaluations on the teachers we pay with our tax dollars to do a job. if a teacher or administrator evaluates me in writting and it is negative I will call it slander and take legal action. the gov. has no right to evaluate parents unlesss there is a reason of health and or safety. this is another waste by politicians to try and sound important.
More big controling government in action!
I, like many others, am on the fence with this issue. I do have to admit my specific situation does not exactly apply here as I am a college student with no school age children, nevertheless I do want to through my two cents in on the issue.
When I was in school (granted it was down south in Pasco County) we had a system on the internet that my parents had a password to. They could log on and see not only my grades but what homework I had that night and if I was absent from class. This is a far better idea than trying to “grade” parents on their involvement. It encourages them to get involved instead of trying to force them which in turn will get some parents to be defensive.
Hillary, I read your blog and for the most part I agree that the items identified in the legislation are misguided. However, I do think the discussion regarding parent responsibility needs to be had (and on a national scale).
Parents are the most important input into a child.
For the article I referenced in an earlier post please read the attached (it is from the Wall Street Journal, not cnbc as noted).
http://online.wsj.com/article
David said…..You probably are thinking about A squared plus B squared equals C squared where A and B are the lengths of the two legs of a right triangle (one where one angle is ninety degrees) and C is the length of the hypotenuse (the other side, farthest from the right angle). That’s just a guess, though.
I said….(chuckle) Mr Green, you are merciless.
Just another thing to do besides teaching the FCAT.
REGARDING:
” I don’t know how to help except tell him to tell the teacher he needs help because mom doesn’t get A+B=C”
You probably are thinking about A squared plus B squared equals C squared where A and B are the lengths of the two legs of a right triangle (one where one angle is ninety degrees) and C is the length of the hypotenuse (the other side, farthest from the right angle). That’s just a guess, though.
As to the proposed bill, it looks like an attempt to make clear that the teacher isn’t always a hero if the kids do well or a villain if they do poorly. Parents and the children themselves are involved in the result–kind of like the three sides of a triangle.
David for perfect parents, teachers and students
Well. Good luck actually getting it done.
I’m not sure if I like it or not.
I don’t really have a dog in this fight.
Definitely need to be drug testing EVERYONE who gets anything at all from the government though. That’s something that needs to be explored.
Yes some parents dont help thier kids w/the homework..& some parents dont care if thier kids even go to school..My son makes As & Bs & goes to Ernest Ward..I have only seen him open a book once or twice this yr & most of his homework is done before he even gets home. There are some things that have changed since I went to school & No I dont know how to help except tell him to tell the teacher he needs help because mom doesnt get A+B=C….I would hope that if a student is constantly not doing homework or misbehaving or missing a lot of school, the school would notify the parents & set up Teacher/Parent Conferences.
really? why don’t all you meddling busy body legislators mind your own business and stop weighing down our teachers with more busy work? here is an idea….all legislators that have nothing better to do than cook up idiotic activities for teachers to perform must complete a month long shadowing operation at a lower socio-economic rural school with that school’s teacher of the year. you must also read “Poverty” by Ruby Payne…
I know that this idea may seem interesting to some people, but I don’t at all agree with it. I’m a secondary education major right now and I actually read this article a few weeks ago and published a post on it. You can visit my blog and read the post here. It also includes a link to another teacher’s blog, who I think offers great insight, as well as an origional article.
Anyway there really would be no way of grading parents appropriately without the government seriously overstepping their boundaries. Also, it’s the teachers job to do everything they can to encourage parental involvement and to show that it is needed.
This is one of the most ridiculous things I have heard. Teachers, schools, and school districts don’t need yet another issue to assess and report. As for this statement:
Stargel said. “It’s mostly so we can identify those parents who are not involved.”
News flash: Good teachers already know the parents that are involved and the ones who aren’t. It’s fairly easy to determine by simple observation. Does anyone really think that if a parent is so unconcerned about his child’s education that ‘grading’ the parent on his lack of interest and pointing it out to the parent is going to make any kind of positive difference? No, a person who doesn’t care will not suddenly start to care just because someone has pointed out the lack of caring!
LOL @ tired, I didn’t read your comment before I posted mine, But The parent’s I’m talking about mostly live in atmore! Kudos to you for doing what you do!
I agree with this completely! A lot of parents want to run around blaming the teachers for their kids bad grades and when they get in trouble in class…guess what, the teacher is to blame there too! I dont agree with that at all, It all starts at home and if the parents wont get up and help with homework and be involved then the teachers shouldn’t be the only ones catching grief for it. I was 4 years old and could say/write the alphabet, count to 100 and write my name address, and my parent’s full names. I know a couple of kids that are 7-9 and barely skid by each year because the parents dont help them! When I was in school it was mostly up to my parents and myself to go to school, do what I needed to do and not act up in class. And I never had a sorry excuse for why my homework wasn’t done or why I didn’t bring it home. I was in probably 8th or 9th grade before I ever even realized I didnt HAVE to do my homework, but it was instilled in me so reguardless to what everyone else was doing or not doing, I still did what I was supposed to. Parents just dont care anymore! It’s really sad that the kids today are going to be the kids of our future and look how they act, They are not held accountable for ANYTHING! I know there are some good parents out there but this is directed to the ones that dont care enough to help their children be the best they can be! Of all the children that I know right now, ages 7-14 that are in school and their parents dont care, and I know this for a fact, I can not imagine any of them working anywhere they can actually make money and be productive. SO I say all of this to say, YES bring it on! Grade the parents! Then maybe there will be more that care, or at least pretend to care! Parents that dont care are ruining the possiblity of their children doing better than they have, and GOD know’s these kids need to do better than the parents I’m speaking about!
You have GOT to be kidding! Take away the teachers unions, no raises, take away longevity, take away drop, cut health benefits and pay more for the benefits they still have left, pay into your retirement system, etc, etc and NOW grade the parents? GIVE THE TEACHERS A BREAK!
Teachers are to spend their time teaching children NOT playing parent patrol!
Take away all of the government assistance and drug test the parents of students that are not prepared for school and that are failing! QUIT BLAMMING TEACHERS for the world’s problems!
I agree this idea needs to be explored. Parental involvement in the life of a child is one of the most important factors in that child’s development. I think the attempt at mutual responsiblity (between teacher and parent) is a necessity with the way the U.S. educational system is being structured.
In case you happen to question the state of the U.S. educational system, there was a graph on cnbc.com last week that showed that the U.S. dropout rate is over 20% and in the bottom range of the world. The article that accompanied this was inferring that the country of Portugal may not be able to recover from their economic malaise due to the lack of education of its working-age citizens.
In other words, if you can’t educate them now, they may not be productive later.
this is about as dumb as teachers pay being based on kids performance. Some kids learn, some don’t. I am an involved parent and my child studies and knows material but come test time passing a test is almost impossible. So that doesn’t mean Im not an involved parent it means my child has issues with test taking. to much government control. To me that is the problem, why don’t we test the government and drug test them and see where we end up.
GREAT idea! I wish Alabama would do this. I teach in Atmore and ALL of my parents would fail! Send out “parent” report cards and birth control!