With teachers and students held to increasingly stringent academic standards, a small but growing number of schools around the country are insisting that parents also make the grade. Harold Washington has issued its parents their own report cards for several years. Chicago has announced plans to take a similar practice district-wide this fall, when it will send home reports on the moms and dads of the 431,000 kids in grades K through 12. The Chicago district, plagued by dismal standardized test scores, hopes this new approach will increase parental involvement, especially among its many teenage and first-time parents. This program will take away those excuses.
Some educators argue that the program is pointless paper pushing.
Worse, they insist, grades will turn off the very parents schools need to engage. It will only make her more likely to hide at home. A more measured approach is used at Baltimore's Dr. Bernard Harris Sr. Elementary School, which mailed out self-scoring parent reports last fall. Just seeing their parents scrutinized is incentive enough for some students to improve.