Opinion
Families & the Community Letter to the Editor

Organization Takes a Stand Opposing Proposed Report Cards for Parents

April 12, 2016 1 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

To the Editor:

The Mississippi legislature is considering a proposal, House Bill 4, that is attempting to prescribe criteria to measure and ensure parents’ involvement in their children’s public education (“Mississippi Lawmaker: Give Parents Grades Along With Their Children”). The blog post notes that the author of the bill, Rep. Gregory Holloway, a Democrat, has said he hasn’t met with any resistance to the plan.

Parents for Public Schools, the organization I run, vehemently opposes this bill and its recent amendments.

Mississippi HB 4 proposes that parents be graded on their children’s in-school behavior as well as what is defined in the bill as “parent involvement.” Grades would be based on criteria that include children’s tardiness, attendance, homework completion, and preparation for tests and parents’ attendance at in-person parent-teacher conferences and maintenance of correspondence with their children’s teachers.

The parents’ grades would be included on their children’s report cards.

Unfortunately, this type of legislation is developed when parents from diverse families are not intentionally and actively involved in helping to write legislation that would directly impact them.

Mississippi HB 4 ignores the real challenges of parents who work multiple jobs and of families in poverty who won’t always have the resources, such as money or transportation, to meet the criteria in the bill.

There is a lack of evidence to support that the criteria in the bill are an effective means to increase parent involvement or improve a child’s academic success.

Parents for Public Schools will not support any parent-involvement legislation that lacks a sense of equity and excludes the voice of parents. We oppose Mississippi House Bill 4.

Catherine Cushinberry

Executive Director

Parents for Public Schools

Jackson, Miss.

Related Tags:

A version of this article appeared in the April 13, 2016 edition of Education Week as Organization Takes a Stand Opposing Proposed Report Cards for Parents

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Families & the Community Parents Trust School Librarians to Select Books, But There's a Catch
A new survey shows what parents think of school libraries and librarians following efforts throughout the country to remove books.
5 min read
Books sit in a cart and on shelves in an elementary school library in suburban Atlanta on Aug. 18, 2023.
Books sit in a cart and on shelves in an elementary school library in suburban Atlanta on Aug. 18, 2023.
Hakim Wright Sr./AP
Families & the Community A Side Effect of Anti-CRT Campaigns? Reduced Trust in Local Schools
The calls to ban CRT had little evidence behind them, but they were powerful enough to change people's perceptions of their local schools.
6 min read
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly signs HB7, "individual freedom," also dubbed the "stop woke" bill during a news conference at Mater Academy Charter Middle/High School in Hialeah Gardens, Fla., on Friday, April 22, 2022.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs HB7, the Individual Freedom Act, also dubbed the Stop WOKE Act, during a news conference at Mater Academy Charter Middle/High School in Hialeah Gardens, Fla., on Friday, April 22, 2022. The bill is intended to prohibit the teaching of critical race theory in K-12 schools. New research finds that the public calls for bans on the instruction of critical race theory diminished the general public's trust in local schools and teachers.
Daniel A. Varela/Miami Herald via AP
Families & the Community Opinion I Thought I Knew Parent-Teacher Conferences. Then My Own Child Started School
Parent-teacher conferences are a different experience from the other side of the table, writes one experienced educator.
Marissa McCue Armitage
4 min read
Hands holding red circle. Sensing energy between palms. Concept of human relation, togetherness, partnership, connection, contact or network
iStock/Getty + Education Week
Families & the Community Parents Don’t Know When Their Kids Have Fallen Behind. Report Cards Could Be the Problem
Parents rely on report cards to gauge whether their kids are on track academically. But they might be misleading, a survey shows.
6 min read
Hand holding out school report card with grades for test scores or school grades. Background with student silhouettes.
DigitalVision Vectors/Getty