Tuesday, April 26, 2011

C4T #4 - A Summary

Cranky Teacher
For my final C4T comments, I visited the blog of Caren Carrillo. I commented on the most recent post (from January), Grading Parents and a (December) post, A Teacher's Frightening Power.

Grading Parents informs readers about a proposed bill put forth by Florida State Representative, Kelli Stargel, that would grade parents on their involvement in their child's education. The full CNN article can be found here.

According to the Orlando Sentinel, "Parents with children in pre-K-to-third-grade would get "satisfactory," "needs improvement" or "unsatisfactory" ratings in four broad categories." The report said, "They would be judged on their response to requests for meetings or communication, their children's completion of homework and preparation for tests, their children's absentee and tardy rates and their children's 'physical preparation for school,' including a good night's sleep and appropriate meals."

I offered Caren an update on the bill's progress as reported by Kim MacQueen, reporter for the Florida Tribune, written March 29, 2011. Here are a few comments I made in response to Caren's post:

I paid special attention to Rep. Stargel’s comments, "We’re not looking to grade parenting as a whole ... We’re not looking to grade whether parents bring brownies to PTA," she said. "We’re looking to grade: Are the children attending school? Are the parents filling out the proper paperwork? Is the right information on file in the classroom?"

This left me somewhat confused because I thought that most school districts employed truancy officers to regulate attendance issues and communicate with parents. I’m sure there are plenty of headaches from parents who neglect to complete proper paperwork.

However, would any of these issues improve if parents were graded? What would be the consequences if they were graded poorly? Is this the best way to encourage parental involvement? More importantly, what teacher has the time to take on the added responsibility of “grading” parents? This goes to Rep. Dwight Bullard’s comment, “I don’t think it should be burdensome…”
This is one story I will be following!

My second visit to Carens' blog led me to the post, A Teacher's Frightening Power. In it, Caren described her personal experience in a graduate level class. She vented her frustration about the professor's pedagogy and put a positive spin on the situation by using her blog to teach others what not to do in their future classrooms. I offered her some encouragement by discussing a similar situation I have encountered and referenced a link to www.ratemyprofessor.com. I closed my comments with, "Here's to inspiring our students and NOT defeating them!"

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