Hey, kids! Big Mother is watching you

Posted by Philissa at 3:37 PM

It's getting easier to be a helicopter parent, according to an article in Sunday's Times about the rise of online data systems that allow parents to track their kids' school performance in real time.

Using programs such as ParentConnect and Edline, parents in some school districts can log on to see whether their kids cut class, aced a test, or failed to hand in a homework assignment that day. The programs, which are used in thousands of school districts nationwide, recalculate student averages with each new data point entered, making grade-tracking akin to, as one parent notes in the article, tracking the stock market. School officials say the programs build connections between home and school and allow busy parents to be involved in their kids' lives.

Many students seem to like the fact that the programs let them monitor their own progress and check their teachers' work. But they don't love letting their parents in on their daily lives and decisions. And for good reason -- parents in the article admit getting out of hand, checking obsessively and getting too involved in their kids' schoolwork.

I don't think any of these programs are being used in New York City schools, at least not to any sizable degree. But the DOE did say two years ago when it first unveiled the plan to require interim assessments multiple times a year that "parents will be able to log into a website that will have up-to-date information about their child and their school." I don't think this component of the plan has come to fruition -- but in a city where data, not parents and children, come first, perhaps it's on it's way.

If a computer program like this existed in your child's school, would you use it?

DOE announces improvements in class size ... data

Posted by Philissa at 11:52 AM

The DOE has just announced "new measures to improve transparency and detail in class size reporting." Using improved means of data collection, the DOE will start publishing class size reports so parents can know on a grade-by-grade, school-by-school level how large classes are. Now that sounds like the kind of report parents might actually trust when deciding where to send their kids. Of course, they'll have to wade through an Excel file with more than 16,000 entries to get the information they want.

Nowhere in the press release is there any indication that the DOE has intentions of reducing class sizes beyond what principals choose to do on their own, with the help of the DOE's "targeted class size reduction coaching program." But perhaps the improved transparency is a concession by the DOE that parents think class size is important? That would be a major shift from earlier this year, when the DOE worked hard to downplay parents' calls for smaller class sizes in the Learning Environment Surveys.

Is the city's "outside" evaluation group really independent?

Posted by Philissa at 11:16 AM

The Times took a look yesterday at the Research Partnership for New York City's Schools, which you read about here last month. There's not much new in the Times article, and there's definitely no word from those who are legitimately concerned that the members of the research group have interests in seeing the data bear out certain results. Over at NYC Educator, reality-based educator writes, "taking a closer look at just who will be doing all the analysis and who will be paying for it, you'd have to say that nearly everybody in this supposed 'outside agency' is connected to the school system."

My take on the panel is not quite as cynical as reality-based educator's, but I agree it's problematic that organizations leading various reform efforts are represented on a panel whose job it is to evaluate reform efforts that include their own. I'm not sure what the solution is. There are a finite number of individuals and organizations who truly care about school reform, and it seems natural that they would seek to enact those reforms in addition to talking about them. So I'm not sure it's possible to get away from these conflicts of interest if educators are to have any influence at all over what conclusions are drawn from education data.