The report about report cards comes from Gallup and Learning Heroes, the education research arm of the famous polling company. For its report “B-flation: How Good Grades Can Sideline Parents,” the firm surveyed 1,917 parents or guardians of public school students.
In the polling, 64% said they depend on the report card to measure academic progress. A huge majority of the parents or guardians, about 90%, also said they believe their child is performing at grade level or even higher thanks to the A’s and B’s they see listed.
In reality, however, standardized tests such as the National Assessment of Education Progress suggest that cannot be true in many cases since 20% of students across the nation are meeting minimum standards in math and reading in kindergarten through 12th grade.
How are parents being misled? Because many times a classroom grade considers school attendance, classroom behavior, and class participation, which boost a child’s classroom achievement.
Tina Descovich, co-founder of Moms For Liberty, tells AFN the survey proves there is a “real crisis” in public education but many parents are oblivious.
"Two-thirds of American fourth graders can't read on grade level,” she points out, citing current national statistics.
The dismal failure of many public schools is not a new topic, and neither is one supposed solution: Dropping the famous O to 100 grading scale in the name of "equity" for minorities, such as in Fairfax County, Virginia, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C.
Some public school districts have also dropped more rigorous Honors Classes for the same race-based reason, the Daily Caller reported earlier this year.
One glaring sign that students are being robbed of a solid education, Descovich says, is that high schools are graduating a large number of seniors whose academic records show they are leaving school with poor grades in basic reading and math skills.
"Parents really need to take the time to figure out what's going on in their school districts. They need to ask the tough questions,” Descovich, a former school board member, says. “And they need to look at their annual test scores that are given by their states or any other national tests that they're taking."
Bibb Hubbard, who leads Learning Heroes, similarly concluded parents must stop taking a back seat.
“This is a solvable problem,” Hubbard said in a statement. “And we are leaving an incredible national asset — America's parents — on the sidelines, lulled into complacency by B-flation."
