In the latest article I read labeled, “Web Site Lets Parents Track Data on Students” which was in the May 28, 2009 issue of the New York Times, it discussed how all schools will have an interactive student portfolio with everything from test scores, grades, and attendance rates. We currently use this at our school, its called Power School.
Aris is the name of the program that IBM came up with for the city of New York to implement in their classrooms. As with most computer products their have been some down sides to using the program that is suppose to be a power tool for parents. One of the biggest problems is the fact that sometimes the server goes down, or the program just isn’t working. This sounds very similar to the problems my school currently has with the Power School program.
Aris is said to be a revolutionary program that will find kids deficiency much sooner then tracking them in a regular grade book. Because the program is all online parents have no problem tracking their student’s attendance records. This makes for a great tool to check up on their kids and make sure they are getting to class on time, and not spending too much time just hanging out in the hallways.
After reading this article I just can’t help myself but express my frustrations with our version of the Aris software and the direction it has taken parent/teacher communication. I feel that being able to check your kids score anytime, is something that is taking away from making a child accountable. Students don’t have to worry about what is due, or when it’s due, their parents are now the ones who are accountable. It takes away the responsibility factor for a student to learn. I feel that having a interactive student portfolio is another headache for all teachers out their.
I had a student whose mom must have worked on a computer all day, because I received about 3 calls and 6 emails a week, discussing her sons grade and attendance for art class. ART CLASS!!! Could you imagine if it was a class like history, math, or science? Her son wasn’t taking any responsibility for turning in his projects on time, and seemed to just wait for his mom to call. I really think this has hurt him, as he ended up doing poorly in many of his other classes.
My ending thought on this whole idea of a voyeur life that we are all starting to become accustom to, is a dangerous thing for our youth. If we don’t need responsibility or the sense of being accountable, how can we move forward?
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PowerSchool will be mandatory for ND schools because it was included in Section 9 of HB1400. The state leaders hope using PowerSchool across ND will enable the Viewpoint state data warehouse system to acquire longitudinal data and improve instruction.
ReplyDeleteWhen PowerSchool first became available, I was one of those parents that checked it 3 – 5 times a week. Because of exactly the reasons you stated (making my sons accountable for their own behavior), I had to retrain myself. Now, we check it together every Friday evening. This determines what they do over the weekend. If there are any tardies or late/missing papers there are no privileges until we check again the next Friday. This works well. We utilize PowerSchool so we can reinforce teachers’ efforts.
I understand your frustration. However my personal and preofessional experiance with Powerschool has been quite different.
ReplyDeleteThe fact parents can see at any time what their kids are doing, where they are lacking, what they are missing has been very effective keeping kids in line and accountable. I am not sure I follow the logic that it somehow makes kids less accountable. A list of missed assignments buried in a paper gradebook that can never be seen by the parent certainly leaves them far more able to skirt thier responsibilities because the parent is completely out of the picture. It then falls to the teacher to hound the kid or hound their parents - much less work and far more likely to fail in my mind.
Kids will be kids (some more so than others) and they are going to forget or simply ignore assignments. With Powerschool there is at least a chance pressure brought by parents will get them to complete the work.
I think we have to differentiate between accountability and responsibility. Accountability is holding someone to their responsibilities and making them face the music if they choose to ignore them. I don't think it matters who does the accounting as long as it is done. Responsibility, on the other hand, is completely personal. Each person knows what they must to (or should). In my mind Powerschool takes a lot of pressure for student accountability and success off teachers and places it where it should be - with the parent and child.
Much of this also depends on having parents willing to use the tool properly. Using it to do everything for the child defeats the purpose. Using it to hold the child accountable is the point and in my experiance it works very well.
We have a similar program called Edline at our school. The problem we have is teachers are only required to post at midterm and quarter breaks. Some teachers post frequently and others only due the bare minimum. As a teacher of a supervised study hall, this is frustrating when we get together to check progress and nothing has been posted in weeks. All of a sudden, grades are posted and a kid is missing 5 assignments. Some students then feel like they can barely keep their head above water to keep up. If things were updated more frequently, even just a check to show it was turned in would make my job easier. I explain to parents that Edline is for them to double check if a kid is telling the truth. "Do you have homework tonight? Is everything turned in?" Of course, they always say no to the first one and yes to the second. This just gives parents a glimpse into what is going on. Rather than the parent emailing and calling about grades, we need to teach kids to be advocates for themselves. They should be the one communicating a discrepancy or something that doesn't seem right.
ReplyDeleteI can see where you are coming from with student accountability. However, I think helicopter parents will be helicopter parents. A few years ago there was a kid who was constantly violating our cell phone policy. He was disrespectful and an all around jerk. Finally he had reached the limit and got his phone taken away for a period of time. What did the mother do? She gave the child her phone so that he could still have a phone at school. She fought tooth and nail with the principal and ended up having her kid transfer to another school. Did Powerschool make her kid a jerk? Of course not. I don’t think Powerschool discourages student accountability. Those students (and parents) have those traits already.
ReplyDeleteWe have a program that is similar to this in our county. It is called Edline. It’s nice in that you no longer have parents questioning why students got certain grades or have parents shocked at the middle or end of a quarter. They can see their child’s grades at anytime and it can help them to stay on top of their child. I do agree that this could take responsibility away from the student, but a good parent would not need to constantly stay on top of their child. Their child should know responsibility. All in all I like this program. Parents contact me less because they no longer have to worry about how their child is doing. They can check the grades daily to find out. Edline can also send an email to the parent when a new grade is posted. This way they can stay up to the minute current with grades.
ReplyDeleteI have worked with so many different combination attendance grading programs that I cannot remember all their names. I do think that these programs are a double-edged sword. I can empathize with Wes. I do have a lot of parent emails about whether or not Johnny is caught up in class. This probably isn't doing a service to this young man at the time. However, it may get him through high school with decent grades and graduate. This will afford him some opportunities when he does get his act together and matures. If he doesn't no harm done. Parents are empowered with information as a tool to do the best by their children. Its going to take time for teachers and parents to catch up with the technology. Our administration also has to establish minimum's and deadlines for posting. Once this practice becomes tradition the kinks will be smoothed out.
ReplyDeleteI am excited at the prospect of using power school in our small rural school. So often parents just want to know how their kids are doing. I think it is meant to be a tool to boost communication and make students accountable at home for their grades. As of now I have no way of knowing how my son is doing in a course until I get the deficiency... I work at the school and the teachers could just tell me, Hey your son needs to beef up his performance little or he is on the verge of failing. They don't, I find out in the mail. I get the no homework tonight excuse and that's not due till next week excuse at home. I am looking forward to having one more way to bridge the gap between home and school.
ReplyDeleteIn my classroom, I am looking forward to using some of the templates that power school offers. The report card I use in kindergarten is very detailed...I hope that by the time I start using it there are ones out there that resemble my own. I keep track of attendance on Excel and email parents often...hopefully this will just add to one more means of keeping these records consistent and moreover to keep better academic records and data about our students. Kudos, to administrators that mandate teachers to use and implement the software effectively, otherwise it would be useless.
Don’t be so quick to down art class! If my daughter were failing art, I would be ticked just as if it were English. Art helps with other subjects, take that away and the child does not learn as well. Besides, I am a doodler, even when I teach.
ReplyDeleteI never saw Powerschool through those types of eyes before. I did not think that the responsibility is on the parent and not on the student, but you bring up a good point. I don’t give grades out to kids. Since our school has Powerschool also, I have told kids that they can look up their own grades and that they should not waste my time asking me what they missed or what their current percentage is. In terms of parents, I let them know that I will respond to one email a week and if it is a question that their child should ask, then the child should ask it. And I will actually put, “That is a question for your child to ask, or for face to face discussion with me.” I know what you are saying, “Wow, what a jerk,” and it may seem that way. But the responsibility is ultimately with the student, period. The other thing about email is that it gives people a false sense of confidence; parents will say anything over the Internet that they will not dare say to your face.
Well, I can understand your frustration, but also believe that these grading and attendance tools, should they be used correctly by students and parents, will do more good than harm. I do realize that this continues to create more work for the teachers and we are then more connected to additional technologies that we often can't control i.e. network is slow, site is down etc... Still, I believe these new tools, like PowerSchool, are beneficial for all if used approriately. Unfortunately, it may be the only communication we have with parents. Oh, by the way, I think your issue above is unfortunate, however, establish a practice for responding to emails/issues and follow it. Respond to the parent once and then indicate any further communication would require a face to face visit or phone call. I am a firm believer that email communication creates more harm than good when addressing student issues.
ReplyDeleteI think this is a situation where a few people start to ruin it for everyone else. What I mean by that is when you have a parent act the way your parent does it leaves a bad impression of powerschool for me. For a majority of students it is handy because they can see what their grades are and don't have to come up to your desk everyday to see if their grades have changed. On the other hand, parents can do it for them now it are not holding thier kids responsible for staying informed on their own grades.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my number one concern is that we rely too much on powerschool and families who cannot afford a computer with internet access lose out. I know that everone has access to computers at the library but in a system that is supposed to make things easier it seems to be causing a whole lot more problems.