My own college-bound high school senior captured the mixed message that student information systems deliver. On the one hand, he liked it because it kept him on track with his grades and assignments. But did it help him learn? “School isn’t about learning,” Jeff said. “It’s about doing well.”
These up-to-the minute reports on a child’s grades also have a way of directing family conversation and focus to metrics at the expense of the subjects being taught or the other, non-academic developments occurring in a kid’s life, which might actually be weighing more heavily than the results of a bio quiz. “It looks like a disproportionate interest in this one aspect of their development,” she said. This comes at a time when research suggests that kids are more anxious about grades than their family or social lives. “That’s your greatest stress, and you get to check it five-six times a day?” Levine said.
Student information systems have a dangerous seductive quality as well. When Levine’s children were in high school, she found herself logging in compulsively to check their grades. Unable to stop herself, she finally disengaged from the system altogether. Levine would like to see schools stop using information systems entirely, just as roughly half the schools around the country gave up on class rank. “This should be next,” she said. “It’s even worse.”
For their part, parents asked about the uses of student information systems dismissed the notion that they helped their children learn. “It has nothing to do with learning, everything to do with measuring—which is all anyone cares about,” said Kathleen Feeney, mother of tenth- and twelfth-grade boys. “Learning? Interesting question,” wrote Kristen Pierotti, whose four school-age children log into PowerSchool with varying degrees of frequency. “It’s all about GPA!” said Terry Jacobs, whose college-age son advised his younger siblings to stay on top of their online tracking to better manage their end-of-quarter grades.
TEACHING RESPONSIBILITY?
But these same parents were quick to point out some benefits to the data systems. While they might not aid academic learning, the systems do encourage kids to be responsible for their performance in the classroom, many said. “Jeremy definitely feels more ‘ownership’ of his academic results, ‘brand’ and ‘profile’ through PowerSchool,” said Cheryl Barr about her tenth-grade son. “I do believe it helps them to see their grades in real time, and they work harder when they see they have slipped or need to pull up a grade to get into a desired range,” Pierotti said. It also helps keep teachers accountable to their students, said Maribeth Bowen, whose twelfth-grade daughter checks in regularly to be sure her grades are recorded accurately. What's more, these online grading systems remove any surprises from the quarterly report card, Pierotti added.
Angel Harris, co-author of The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement with Children’s Education, agrees that student information systems have the potential to be useful for kids. “It’s a good diagnostic for students, so they know when they’re missing points or assignments,” he said. As for parents’ use of the systems to oversee their children’s grades, he’s less sanguine. What matters is how parents respond to the information they encounter. “The punitive response”— punishing, withholding, berating — “is associated with declines in achievement,” Harris said.
What about teachers? Eleanor Lear taught English at Summit High School in New Jersey, and she dreaded using PowerSchool when it was first introduced. “I was really afraid of it,” she said. But Lear discovered that it helped keep her timely with grading and compelled her students to take ownership of their work. “The learning isn’t about English, but it’s about taking responsibility for themselves,” she said. “There’s no more Hail Marys at the end of the quarter, hoping to pull out an A- after getting all Cs,” she said. “It takes away their excuses.”
Not that it was all good. “For parents who had a propensity to obsess over grades, it gave them license to obsess even more,” Lear said. The system also rewarded grade-grubbers, she said, and drew students’ attention to tiny missed homework assignments rather than the subject. In addition, Lear squirmed over having her grade book open to students, parents and administrators. “There’s no room for you to apply your judgment,” she added.
Madeline Levine says these systems undermine what teachers and parents ultimately value. “Everything we hear about 21st century business, from business leaders, is that they want collaborators, communicators. And none of that comes through when the only thing schools focus on is metrics,” she said. Learning how to collaborate comes from working on group projects and absorbing cultural norms that promote cooperation and teamwork. “All this does is cultivate cynicism,” she said.
