Should parents have online access to student grades?

I HATE POWERSCHOOL!!!!!1

I get straight A's but my parents know EVERYTHING. They see when I got a 22/25 on this stupid worksheet. Before I could hide it, get straight A's and life was a picknick. Fuck powerschool.

I am a student and i think parents being able to see their kid's grades online makes them to judgmental. This has happened to me. I was failing the after the first week of school and it was only because i made a poor grade on the first test (test count for 45 percent of the grade) and without having any homework it really didn't average out because there was no balance of more than 3 assignments. So my parents went on the fritz and took every thing out of my room for 1 month, even though my grade after the test the next week was an A. So I was without my stuff for 3 more weeks which I think was unfair. So instead of parents judging by the the day let them wait for the progress report.

I'm a sophmore, with a 3.3 GPA. During the first quarter of my freshman year, I earned straight A's. After that however, my grades sharply declined. That was when Edline was introduced. Every single time a teacher entered a grade incorrectly, I had a missing assignment or something else bringing my grade in a certain class down, it was hell at home. Edline gave me no freedom to tell a white lie, or learn my own mistakes. Isn't that what being a teenager is supposed to be about? Experimentation, failure, and most importantly learning from the experiments, and failures. Edline allows no room to do that. I began to stress more over my parent's reaction to grades than the actual grades. I was striving for an unattainable perfection. Eventually, I attempted suicide. Would you rather have a happy student or a dead one? A happy daughter or a dead daughter?

NO! Edline has been completly ruining my life.
My mom now seems like the enemy. Before edline I got good grades. But now they are absolutly terrible. Every time i get am f or a missing assignmet, I get grounded for a week. I get yelled at every day.
If I have a test tomorrow, I'll study for it.
If I had two, I'd tell my mom i only had 1, study for both, and pass without getting screamed at for an hour.
But no. Now that edline is in my life, there are no more of those little white lies.
It's not fun for the students.
I wish the parents of today would remember their childhood.
It would make it so much easier on us.

I would love for my district to get this for the elementary schools. Just recently we switched from carbon copy reports cards (yuck!) to a Word formatted report card we print out (still yuck, but better than hand-writing!). It would be so much easier for all involved to publish the grades and comments online. Of course, the site would have to be secure, with only parents and teachers having access using a code or something similar.

There is something called zangle...

I don't think you canadians and europians don't know a thing about it...

The problem that I have with a system like this right now is the people that would be using it. I mean, really, the only ones that would use it, are the ones that are already making the higher grades, and that actually care about school. Today's HS students fail because the students don't really care about the school work. This stems from the parents not caring about the students school. Don't get me wrong, it seems like a great system. But if the parents don't care about the grades now, why would they care about the grades when they are put online. What we need to focus on, is a way to motivate our students and parents into participation in school activities. This could be a start to that, but we need to look at other options as well. Something that lets the parents know what a failing grade means to the future of that student, or how having a higher average can help financially later in life (college tuition, better jobs, etc..)

I am a teacher. I love online grades (we use Easy Grade Pro & Edline). My parents love it. My students love it.

(1) I make mistakes (entering "10" instead of "100", forgetting to enter a grade, etc). Students catch these errors immediately. Makes my job so MUCH easier. Less drama at the end of the grading period.

(2) My grading paradigm is crystal clear, and many other teachers have had to make theirs clear, too. Some of my friends in high school pulled low grades because the teacher had a subjective "50% of your grade is class participation and attitude" grading system. Sorry, evil teachers, no more fudging grades. If you're going to try to screw over a student, you'll have to justify in black and white now. Also, have fun explaining to some quiet kid with a B++ why the kiss-up student got the nod for an A- but the quiet nerd kid with the B++ didn't. :) Now you'll actually have to change a numerical grade to perpetrate your injustice. Or just lie at the end of the 9 weeks.

(3) Parents who try to complain that their son/daughter is being unfairly treated mysteriously pipe down when they are updated about their kid's progress twice a week. It's hard to cry to the principal about some type of "injustice" when a poor grade has been unfolding in front of the parents' eyes for 9 weeks. Teachers: if you love grading make-up work that's 3 weeks late or love to give zeroes to a kid who had an appendectomy and subsequently forgot to hand in some stupid worksheet . . . well, you'll hate Edline!

(4) It just plain old saves everyone time. I don't have to continually explain (or refuse to re-explain) to students how to calculate their grades. They sign up for e-mail updates, log-in to Edline, check their grades, and can see exactly what i see in my gradebook. Admin can see student grades when they need to, and don't have to bother me for current student progress reports. Ditto counselors and even some coaches.

(5) As far as all of the whinging about overemphasis on grades, well, I just don't get it. If a parent complains about a kid getting a "B" when they see it online . . . well, wouldn't that parent moan about a "B" if the student brought the assignment home and handed it to the parent (or simply told them about it)? If several of the posters here mean that their parents get on their case now because their parents aren't in the dark anymore . . . well, you have to ask yourself if a student has a right to screen bad grades from their parents. I don't believe that they do have this right. For instance, any parent who calls me on the phone has a right to ask me how their child is doing in my class, e.g., what is the student's average, what was the grade on the last test, etc. If the parents don't have this right, then I am mistaken, and this is one crazy country. One more thing about "overemphasis on grades": that may be a valid criticism, but it sounds like a criticism of our system of grades in general, not a criticism of online grade reports.

I guess my overall point is, how can more communication be bad? What is the alternative, *less* communication? I just don't see how providing students and parents with up-to-date information can be any different than when I was in HS. Back them I either handed grades to parents or told them about those grades. (Or, I could choose not to tell them which just put off the bad news.) Back in the day, I wrote down all of my grades, categorized them by type, and used a calculator to average my grade to the hundredths place, just like I do today with a laptop. How was that any more impersonal or "grade-obsessed" than what we do today?

Sorry if I sound righteous or overly self-confident, but no students have ever said to me, "stop notifying me of my grades, please." Nor have parents said, "stop telling me what my daughter forgot to turn in when she was absent for two days last week." If a parent or student really is interested in . . . being left in the dark . . . um, I guess they can just block the e-mails as spam, or ask to be taken off the e-mail list, or just to refuse to check their grades online. Number of people who have chosen this head-in-the-sand approach: I don't know, but I assume that it is small.

Of course, I have heard students jokingly complain that I was getting them in hot water with their parents, but that's like saying a cop gets you in trouble when you are caught driving drunk. Anyway, everyone realizes that a report card is going to be sent home soon enough anyway! Same thing, but with a lot less information. :)

I have heard teachers say that they have been hassled by parents about updating online grades. Hey, what is your JOB, teachers? Among other things, you are supposed to provide timely communication to parents and students about academic progress. I believe that this is called assessment, and the assessment process involves not just giving an essay, or even giving and grading an essay, but assigning it, marking it, and returning the graded work. A grade is a piece of information. If you have to grade papers, why not do them on time? If you wait too long, they don't get any easier. If you are going to procrastinate, then you are going to have to grade all of those papers all at once. Grade them on time, post the grades online, and let everyone know where the student stands. It will motivate the students and mobilize the parents, whether the grades are good or bad.

Peace, peoples. I think I'll go online and read some more hysterical NY Times articles about online grade reporting now. Guess it wouldn't be newsworthy if they interviewed any of my parents or students.