This year, as part of the 2nd grade curriculum, my kid has had to do monthly book reports. I have no problem with this. He is a good reader and through this program he has discovered books he’s thoroughly enjoyed that he might not have otherwise.

My problem is that along with the reading and summarizing, there is always a ridiculously elaborate project required to be completed as a major part of the grade. When instructions for these projects are sent home, they tell parents to actively participate in the creation and construction of said projects and/or to help out as much as necessary. Also, spelling and grammar in the written summaries count and it is left up to the parents to ensure all book reports are grammatically correct or the students’ grades are penalized.

Last I checked I am not in 2nd grade, but these projects, both in the way they’re expected to be completed and in the way they’re graded, directly require and reflect parental participation. If I cut my kid loose and just provide guidance on what to do and how to complete his assignment he would get poor grades on it. There is no way he can do all the work on these projects himself and get satisfactory grades. It’s simply not possible for a 2nd grader.

I’m of the opinion that these projects are assigned just to see how active parents are in overseeing kids’ schoolwork and to judge how much parents care about their kids’ success in school. Obviously, the parents who don’t assist enough will be exposed through the quality of the book projects. It can then be extrapolated (rightly or wrongly) that those parents don’t necessarily care about their kids’ successes in school.

The question that arises from my opinion is just what does the school plan to do with (generally subjective) data regarding parental participation in assisting student projects?

There’s something not kosher about all this but I can’t put my finger on exactly what’s not.