Do Schools Really Need To Give Parents Live Updates on Students’ Performance?
Big Brother—and Parent, and Teacher—are watching.
Across America, teachers are uploading students’ grades to digital portals on a weekly, daily, or sometimes hourly basis. They are posting not just grades on big tests, but quizzes, homework, and in-class work too. Sometimes teachers give points for day-to-day behavior in real time: Did he raise his hand before asking his question? No? Points are docked. Parents are notified. So are the kids.
The pupil panopticon starts in elementary school and just doesn’t stop.
In one high school, I am told, the grading portal changes color when the grade, even on a single assignment, pushes the kid’s average up (green) or down (red). This can fluctuate by the hour, which means so can a kid’s feelings of joy or despair. Parents can enjoy the same stomach-churning experience because they, too, have access to the portals, for better or worse.
“If I have to hear one more time from my wife about how our son isn’t going to college because he forgot to hand in a single homework assignment or did bad on ONE test I’m gonna fucking lose my mind!” is how one father expressed it on Reddit. “All it does is annoy the shit out of him, annoy the shit out of me, and damage his relationship with her. That’s it.”
That really is it. Even many of the parents who say the portal helps them keep their kids on track still admit it’s a source of stress. They get an extra helping of angst when they watch their kids nervously await the exposure of their grades.
This new school-to-parent pipeline allows parents to micromanage yet another aspect of their kids’ lives. They already track their kids’ locations, via devices and AirTags. And of course, they sign the kids up for organized activities, so the kids are always doing something adult-supervised and parent-approved. Now they have become an invisible presence in one place they used to be banished: the classroom. The message for parents is they should always be watching their kids, even as their kids grow up under a microscope, telescope, and periscope.
I asked for comments on the portals via Facebook. Many people who responded asked me not to use their full names because they’re upset about the system but don’t want their kids to suffer extra for their indiscretion. “My son has ADHD and minor anxiety and he is obsessed with the grade portal—he’s 11,” wrote Jen, a mom in Marshall, Texas. “When he’s waiting for a quiz or test grade, he’s constantly trying to check and refresh the page. It’s disturbing.”
Beth Tubbs is a therapis
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