Sunday, May 4th, 2008...8:53 pm
Spying To Get Into College
Cross-posted at MotherTalkers
by Stacey
New software programs enable parents to learn of everything from their child’s daily class attendance and homework completion to test scores and overall grades throughout the semester, according to this article in the NY Times.
Boy am I glad I’m not a kid anymore. What a nightmare. Sorry if you’re one of those parents who likes to use these programs, but this seems like an invasion of privacy to me.
The article profiles Nicole Dobbins, a mother of three from Alpharetta, Ga. who regularly logs on to ParentConnect, and reads updated reports on her children. By the time she sees them after school she already knows what happened because she’s been spying on them all day.
When her ninth grader gets home at 6 p.m., there may well be ParentConnect printouts on his bedroom desk with poor grades highlighted in yellow by his mother. She will expect an explanation. He will be braced for a punishment. “He knows I’m going to look at ParentConnect every day and we will address it,” Mrs. Dobbins said.
Apparently there are a bunch of these tracking programs out there with names like Edline, ParentConnect, Pinnacle Internet Viewer and PowerSchool. They are being used by thousands of schools, kindergarten through 12th grade, the article says.
Kindergarten? Huh?
But schools do seem to like them. More and more are using them to help teachers communicate with busy parents. Studies have shown that parental involvement can have a positive effect on a child’s academic performance and educators praise the programs’ capacity to engage parents, the article says.
But there has to be a downside.
At an age when teenagers increasingly want to manage their own lives, many parents use these programs to tighten the grip. College admission is so devastatingly competitive, parents say, they feel compelled to check online grades frequently. Parents hope to transform even modest dips before a child’s record is irrevocably scarred. “I tell my son, ‘What you do as a freshman will matter to you as a senior,’ ” Mrs. Dobbins said. “ ‘It will haunt you or applaud you.’ ”
This is fear-based parenting. Is that what we want? To be so terrified of college admissions that we harangue and spy on our kids for four years in a desperate attempt to keep them from fucking up? I don’t want to do this.
Kathleen DeBuys, a mother of four in Roswell, Ga., used to check her e-mail first thing in the morning: the ParentConnect alerts would fly in by 6 a.m. The subject line might read, “Claire has received a failing grade. …”
“And I’d freak out,” said Mrs. DeBuys, speaking of her oldest child, then a high school freshman. “I’d be waking her up, shouting: ‘Claire! What did you fail? What is wrong with you?’ She’d pull the pillow over her head and say, ‘Leave me alone!’ ”
Claire was in the gifted-and-talented program at her school and usually the notices were mistakes due to her missing class either because she had been sick or because she was off being gifted and talented along with the other Harvard-bound kids in her class.
So where’s the trust? The kid is in the g&t program? Why doesn’t it occur to the mom to ask her daughter about it instead of flying around the house like a lunatic at six o’clock in the morning? “It was horrible,” Mrs. DeBuys admits.
Part of the problem is that these kinds of programs are addictive. You want to know whether your surly sixteen year old handed in his English paper? You don’t have to try to pull it out of his reluctant mouth, you can just check your email and find out.
I kind of think that parents use the excuse of competitive college admissions to keep tabs on their kids because it sucks that teenagers shut us out. But isn’t that just the way it goes? Aren’t teenagers supposed to separate? What do you think of these programs?
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4 Comments
May 5th, 2008 at 9:50 am
This comment came to me via email from a reader would like to be known as, “Not a helicopter parent, more like a passenger jet.” She has a son in high school and uses Edline…
The typical and current practice in middle school/ high school is to send parents a computerized report card with alpha grades, accompanied by what appear to be pre-selected canned, vague, and fairly useless comments like “participates in class”, “effort good”, “pleasure to have in class” or “shows enthusiasm for subject” (and I quote). There isn’t room for other more individualistic teacher comments. My lament about this type of pablum is not at all aimed at teachers—no doubt, their positions and worse would be in jeopardy should they actually write what I would consider to be more fruitful statements about problem areas which might benefit from improvement or help.
But I ask, as a parent, does a comment like “pleasure to have in class” do a service when it does nothing to indicate that my child is actually having difficulties comprehending certain texts (which he does), while still nevertheless getting good grades? I would posit absolutely not.
Let’s face it, a child with an average of a C+ can, and does, receive the same absolutely politically correct and bland teacher comments I quoted above. Edline helps me to understand what the numerical GPA is, and how the term’s alpha grade was arrived at. Edline helps me see whether over the course of a month or so my son is veering in a direction which may be causing him to have difficulties understanding and learning the materials. Mind you, my son tells me all his test and quiz grades when he gets them, it is just our family habit, but with a brain that has a very short shelf life, I can’t remember from month to month whether his trajectory is generally flat, up or down in all 4-6 different subjects at the same time.
I firmly believe it is our duty and right as parents to know what our child’s daily/weekly/monthly etc. school grades are, his/her attendance record in school (what should be secret about that?), and to go further, what is being said or posted in IMs, Facebook, My Space, as well as what they are hauling around in their backpacks or shoving in hiding places in their rooms. I am certainly not a helicopter parent, nor do I go snooping around the house with a magnifying glass in hand. Nevertheless, my child knows that I have the power to do so and that I may from time to time do so. Fear based parenting? I believe not—I think it is important for my son to know there are boundaries and that we will be fair but diligent to make sure we all live within them.
Given the ever expanding sandpits and traps which can have fairly immediate and devastating consequences for our youngsters through the use of current technology, more, and not less, parent knowledge of their children is a good thing. I do think that parents need to set balance for their children and families. I pity the child whose parents may hover daily over an Edline type tool, especially in early grade school. I equally sympathize with parents whose child is recalcitrant about communicating difficulties (or even joys) in school; for these parents, a tool like Edline is an invaluable way to keep a finger placed (hopefully lightly) on their child’s educational pulse.
May 5th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Thanks for the thoughtful comment Passenger Jet. It sounds like you’ve found a way to use the technology to help you help your son with his academic work. The article describes parents who sound hysterical about their kids’ school work, not because they care so much about what their kids are learning, but because they are worried about their kids’ academic resume. In my opinion, there’s a world of difference.
May 6th, 2008 at 10:35 pm
Great link to the article. But I would like to clarify one point, if you read to the end you would have noticed that it mentions a “reformed parent connect parent”. Used wisely and not neurotically, PC or Ed-Line can be a good tool to spark conversation and help your kids learn to speak for themselves. (i.e. you’re missing 3 homework grades, you need to talk to your teacher if you have handed them in) Personally, I thought the last paragraph to be the best part of the article. But, I am biased.
May 7th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Good point. I agree that the best use of these programs seems to be that they can help kids keep track of their progress over the semester. It’s the helicopter parenting that makes me queasy.
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