Teachers sending kids work home for parents to grade? (single parents, wife, boys)

[FinsterRufus]

Originally Posted by NEOhioBound

Wow! What if the parents are worse than the kids? I am sorry, but I don't send a note to school with my son expecting the teacher to do my job, so they better not expect me to do theirs. I am all for being involved with my sons school work, but for their to be an expectation that I grade my own kids work all the time?? I better be added to the school payroll then

What if?!

In our case, it would be No Doubt.

[DewDropInn]

Dear Teacher:

Hello there! My name is Mrs. Dew and that lovely child who sits in the back is my son. I know for a fact he's washed behind both ears this morning and I'm pretty sure he brushed his teeth. He also has on clean clothing. He ate breakfast this morning. His hair was combed when he walked out the door.

Those are my responsibilities.

Now then, about this business of having me grade his homework. I worked an eight hour shift today and came home to find the dog had thrown up in Junior's sock drawer. We're out of milk and I have to pay bills later. This has not put me in the best of moods. Coming home and finding out I have to grade his math has pretty much done in the rest of the evening when I was kind of hoping to sneak in American Idol.

He's a good kid so I've decided to give him an A. Please make a note of that in case you think making me grade his homework in the future is another winning idea. You have my permission to give him an A on all future work.

Let me know if I can be of service in the future. I have nothing but time since the washer broke and the repairman is giving me a five hour window tomorrow.

Most sincerely yours,

Straight A Student's Mother

[hml1976]

So I'm probably going to be unpopular for this but I live in the Pacific Northwest as well and this is the kind of squishy stuff that drives me nuts about many of the schools up here. I know in our (highly ranked) middle school it is common for students to grade themselves on English assignments because of course everything in English is objective right? Spelling and sentence structure doesn't count, its the "thought" behind the work.

So combine the squish with teacher laziness (or an overworked teacher) and suddenly it seems ok to have parents grading papers.

I'm thankful my mom never graded my papers...she probably would have failed me!

[haggardhouseelf]

hml1976 - this is one reason why I wanted to ask this on the C-D boards. I am from Texas and the differences between public education in Texas vs. the PNW are often shocking to me. (We've lived in the Seattle area as well.) This high school where my son goes is supposedly the #2 high school in the state. ?? When we relocated here, we chose this neighborhood to live in specifically because the schools were supposed to be the best in the area. We're baffled by our experience here so far, and often find ourselves simply hoping for the best... while shaking our heads in disbelief.

I was curious to know if this was just one of those "squishy" (as you called it ) PNW things or if this was really something unusual. I really appreciate your response.

[hml1976]

Yes, I've been amazed at some of the stuff that happens here as well. We live in a very highly school system across the river from you and there just doesn't seem to be a lot of emphasis on the basics of traditional education. Not to say that the kids aren't great kids and the schools do perform well on standardized tests but it just seems they are concerned so much with other aspects of education outside of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

We wound up sending our kids to Catholic school...we're not Catholic.

[haggardhouseelf]

Originally Posted by hml1976

We wound up sending our kids to Catholic school...we're not Catholic.

That is interesting! At the beginning of this school year we were checking into a private Catholic high school. We are not religious at all. It disturbs us that only 32% of the students at our sons high school are able to get a full schedule! Our son finally was able to get a full schedule (a class for every class period of the day) this term - the last term of the school year. And this is only because we fought for it.

[somebodynew]

Originally Posted by DewDropInn

Dear Teacher:

Hello there! My name is Mrs. Dew and that lovely child who sits in the back is my son. I know for a fact he's washed behind both ears this morning and I'm pretty sure he brushed his teeth. He also has on clean clothing. He ate breakfast this morning. His hair was combed when he walked out the door.

You missed the part about raising him to be a young man of character! For shame.

Funny!

[LisaMc46]

We've never been asked to do this for our girls (grades 4 and 7). However, we are asked to give them practice spelling tests and math tests where we time them and they do the work on their own. Then we look it over and point out any errors. This usually happens the night before an actual test.

[DewDropInn]

Originally Posted by somebodynew

You missed the part about raising him to be a young man of character! For shame.

Funny!

That goes without saying.

[hml1976]

Originally Posted by LisaMc46

We've never been asked to do this for our girls (grades 4 and 7). However, we are asked to give them practice spelling tests and math tests where we time them and they do the work on their own. Then we look it over and point out any errors. This usually happens the night before an actual test.

That's totally different. I do this with my daughter all of the time.