by John Stevenson
Back in the day, report cards were handed out in
class. A student took his report card
home, got his parent’s signature, took his lumps, and brought the report card
back to the issuing teacher. Apparently this
has changed.
Nowadays it seems that report cards are available to
parents on-line, or in some cases mailed directly to them. The latter is how it works at one particular
private boys school in New York.
Here is an excerpt from a report card transmittal letter
dated January 8, 2016: “Since our
goal is to share accurate information with parents, and not to discourage or
hurt a student, great discretion must be used before allowing your child to
view his report card. Certainly, report cards should not be seen by students
without parental permission and guidance.”
So apparently it’s not a certainty that a student should
be told how he is performing. And if the
student is to find out how he did, the parent must provide guidance so as not
to “discourage or hurt” the student.
Huh?
The transmittal letter goes on, in anticipation that the
bad news may cause such trauma that the student should not learn of it. Here’s the punch line: “If after reviewing the enclosed report
card, you would like us to develop a second version of this report card for
your son with higher grades, please call…” (I omit the name and telephone
number.)
Now I have heard of kids forging their parents’
signatures or trying to falsify their grades before showing a report card to
their parents. But I had never until now
heard of a school or parent falsifying a grade (or colluding together to
falsify a grade) before showing the report card to the kid.
This reversal seems so insane as to defy belief. It probably has its roots in the everybody-gets-a-trophy
self-esteem movement. Whatever twisted
thinking underlies this foolishness, the potential harm is obvious---and
considerable.
At the low end of the spectrum, let’s say the student is
failing but is shown a false report card that says he is passing. Where is the incentive for him to forgo the
video games, get cracking on his homework, re-double his scholastic efforts,
seek additional help or tutoring, and so on.
Or let’s say a student thinks he is college-bound, is
earning B’s, but is shown that he is getting A’s. When will he learn the truth? Maybe when he gets his rejection letter from
his chosen university and finds himself at a community college.
In
either situation, the student is being ill-served by the collusion of his school
and his parents. The obvious harm is
that the student will be unprepared for his future---and perhaps condemned to
failure in the real world.
I
don’t know whether any of the parents took advantage of this offer to falsify
their children’s grades. I certainly
hope not. At least some were so appalled
by the offer that they complained---and even turned the letter over to the
press (I picked it up from the Daily Mail and other media).
We can hope that this practice is a weird
anomaly---neither widespread nor a glimpse of the future. I don’t know whether the school has belatedly
awakened to the concept that protecting students from the truth is a really
lousy idea.
