What makes up a successful student? Is it equal parts positive role models, supportive parents, good schools, great teachers, and a safe learning environment with an engaging and relevant curriculum?
I often think about these parts, being married to a teacher and hearing about her daily struggles to motivate and engage students. I also experience the parent’s side of things being the father of a kindergartner who is just now laying the foundation for future success.
When I initially heard about Florida state Rep. Kelli Stargel’s bill to let teachers grade parents by adding satisfactory, unsatisfactory or needs improvement as an item on their child’s report card, it sounded like a great idea.
The criteria for these grades are:
- A child should be at school on time, prepared to learn after a good night’s sleep, and have eaten a meal.
- A child should have the homework done and prepared for examinations.
- There should be regular communication between the parent and teacher.
I’m a firm believer that parents have a huge impact on a child’s success in life. I’m no Tiger Dad, but I do have high expectations for Kate. A college degree and a successful career are definitely in the cards.
I’m not letting badly-run schools off the hook, but few things can be more powerful than high expectations from home.
Thinking about grading a parent’s effort more deeply, I doubt it would make any difference. If mom or dad were lax in their own school work, would it really motivate indifferent parents to focus on education? Maybe, if you went a step further and posted the parental grades publicly!
There are efforts afoot in many state legislatures to start rating schools and individual teachers, but why not parents too? Nobody can agree on what criteria to use.
As a parent, how would I get a satisfactory rating? How would the teacher knows if the child “eats a good meal” and is “prepared” to learn and “prepared” for examinations? Who do you fault if Johnny can’t read?
Also, sometimes it goes much deeper than just a lack of parental caring. Many kids just don’t have a loving and positive support system in place to put it all together. They come from broken homes, are affected by poverty, exposed to crime, and surrounded by negative role models; how would you perform if you had one or all of these odds stacked against you as a child?
How might a teacher differentiate between problems with a student’s home life and lack of parental effort?
I consider myself lucky. Education, hard work and success in school were drilled into me at home and by good teachers. Values were passed along from my parents, who were the first in their families to be college educated.
My grandparents weren’t well educated, but they did push their kids with high expectations and dreams of a better life. Now, I pass these values along to my daughter.
So it does all start at home, and continues with good teaching and other support systems that encourage rather than hinder.
Tell me: What do you think about the idea of grading parents?
Mark Uyemura has officially traded in his bachelorhood to go all in to the dad life. When not mowing his spacious lawn, fixing something on his 80-year old house, or detailing the 16-inch plastic wheel covers on his minivan, he’s at his day job continuously improving the Orange County Register’s web site. Mark is a Cal State Fullerton grad, and lives in nearby Brea with his wife, Andrea, 5-year-old daughter, Kate, and two trusty old dogs, Cooper and Andy.
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Will grading parents result in better students? is a post from: OC Moms: The Mom Blog
