Schools to Grade Parents Under New System

Sometimes, children enter school struggling with concepts such as writing letters and numbers, lining up, taking turns and so on.  Often this is due to developmental difference (late bloomer, anyone?) or simply not being exposed to a preschool environment which is a little more institutional than a home.  It doesn't mean the parents aren't involved, but apparently the school wants to take it that way.  A new proposed Mississippi law will allow schools to (somehow) grade parents for their involvement.

Undocumented, ungraded reading happens in our house.  Shh.

Maybe giving you a grade will "shock you into reality," so to speak.  The "reality," I suppose, being that when homework's assigned, it had better get done or you will get a bad grade which will be tracked by the state.  

It's outrageous, really, that schools would have the audacity to judge someone's parenting based on whether reading logs are completed and Mom shows up for the dopey Parent-Teacher conference when she knows how her child is doing anyway.

The thing is, guess who doesn't show up to those conferences?  Often, it's the mom with two jobs who can't possibly make it and still have time to feed her children dinner, or who can't afford a sitter.  Other moms know their child is doing horribly and really don't want to make a two-hour round trip in the cold, battling other parents in the parking lot and wait around just to be told how miserable things are (implication: bad parent).  We all know that real solutions aren't grappled with in these conferences anyway.  There really isn't a point to going, not in 2016 when we have skype and email.

I find it over-the-line, really, to grade parents.  It sets up an antagonistic relationship to boot.  If the end goal is to help parents to do some of the things the school would like to see happen, this is not the way to go about doing it.