Can mandatory parent report cards help students succeed?

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Parents usually scrutinize their child’s report cards, checking for passing grades with concern, but could asking parents to grade themselves on report cards be a way to encourage parental support in school districts across the country?

Lawmakers in Tennessee recently signed off on legislation that would create mandatory parent report cards giving parents detailed guidelines for offering better support to their school-aged children.

The bill – which would apply just to two of the state’s struggling schools over the course of a four-year pilot program– would allow parents to voluntarily grade themselves on how they’re doing when it comes to activities like helping out with homework or attending parent-teacher conferences. It’s a measure that passed the state’s Legislature just last week and is an initiative that Governor Bill Haslam has said he’s likely to sign.

To date, Tennessee would be the first state to pass a “report card” bill, although Louisiana is also considering a similar initiative for its public school system.

“Parent involvement is definitely a key ingredient to student success,” says James Martinez, a spokesman for the National Parent Teacher Association. “There are decades of research that continues to show that, regardless socioeconomic status, background, race, and religion, that as long as parents are involved, students will succeed.”

For Martinez, a first-generation Mexican American, the report card bill is a sign that there is a call for increased family engagement.

“You can put all the money you want into an education budget, technology, rewarding good teachers all you’d like, but if parent involvement in education reform is missing, all those efforts would be in vain,” says Martinez. “Latino parents may face language barriers, but they have rights like any other child when it comes to a quality education and no one can advocate for them like their parents can.”

So would a national report card system be successful in increasing Latino parental educational involvement? Eileen Campos, a third grader teacher at a charter school in Brooklyn, says yes.

“I think a parent report card system, especially if mandatory and in Spanish, would be a great way to put any excuse to rest that language and administration can act as a barrier for Latino parental involvement,” says the mother of two. “Parents would be forced to look at themselves and question the extent of the support they’re offering the children.”

Campos, who has a Master’s from New York University in Early Childhood Education, says that she’s seen parental involvement among Latinos drop in the twelve years since she first began teaching. She thinks that for a national report card system to work successfully, teachers should be offered the chance to grade parents, explaining “it would help close the gap if parents weren’t honest in their assessment and could lead to open dialogue about the parent’s involvement in their child’s education.”

“After all, the only way a child can be successful in school and in life is if they have parental support at home.”

NINA TERRERO, NBC LATINO STAFF

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