# Cookie-Cutter Report Card Generators Suck **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 10, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700 "2010-12-10T21:00:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/21 "2010-12-11T00:46:33Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > I don’t know that you can conclude that all C students get the same comments, though, unless you’ve seen the software. > [@Zsofia](#): > > We had the standardized stuff when I was a kid and I always got “Works well independently” which means “Is a social retard”. We used to trade them back and forth - who got “Talks too much”, who got “Works well in groups”, etc. Right, exactly. I happen to know that for my high school, there was a list of comments, and teachers had to select which ones they wanted on the card. It’s quite likely that \ comments, while generic, were personally selected by the teacher, and not automatically generated based on her grade. This might not be perfect either, but not every student _needs_ a highly detailed, personalized performance review. I’m sure you think \ is special, but it might be that she is a good student who understands \ well, but needs to put in more effort in PE. If the pre-written comments are applicable, why do you need the teacher to type out a comment for everyone? Software shortcuts notwithstanding, if \ were an exceptional case, at least in my admittedly limited experiences, teachers are not reluctant to add a specific comment, or even call the parents directly. Hell, my teachers called my parents, sometimes with bad news, but mostly good. You seem to be working under the assumption that teachers are refusing to give valuable feedback. > [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Tell me - how would you feel if you got your car back from the auto shop and it was dirty and the repair was done sloppily, and when you complained about it the mechanic said, “You don’t understand! My job is HARD! My boss works me like a dog. I put in overtime, and I don’t see my kids enough. Do you know how hard those car manuals are to read? I’d have to read them on my own time!” This is the worst analogy ever. Nobody is talking about teachers doing a poor job of educating your children, then refusing to clarify or assist when you complain. Now **if** the comments are populated based on grade alone, which I have good reason to believe they are not, I will somewhat agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/22 "2010-12-11T02:07:46Z")
In my experience, teachers \*must \*use the software. Administration doesn’t let them write their own comments because they are afraid of teachers either looking stupid (due to poor English) or making parents angry (due to brutal honesty). Its a combination of over-cautious administration and a few fuckwitted teachers spoiling things for everyone. Plenty of teachers don’t like this policy either because you can’t make more nuanced comments, as you said. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/23 "2010-12-11T02:22:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I’m surprised that so many of you just had report cards with letter grades and nothing else. Maybe it’s a difference between American and Canadian schools? Canadian here, obviously, and my report cards had very few comments. The letter grade system changed from time to time - for awhile it was something like VG (Very Good), G (Good), S (Satisfactory) and NI (Needs Improvement), which anyone can see is just A-B-C-D and there might have been an F equivalent but I don’t remember. But very few comments. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/24 "2010-12-11T02:27:56Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > All of the tasks I mentioned in my original post are intended to provide the best education possible. I don’t think Sam is diagreeing with you. WE can yak all day about how much teachers work (in my experience, no harder than most people, but that’s neither here nor there.) His point is simply that he is frustrated that the report card conveys little information. His point that it’s not his problem if teachers lack time is perfectly valid. What’s wrong with saying “You know, report cards don’t really report very much” and taking that to task? Look, I don’t have enough time in MY job. My customers do not care… nor, to be perfectly honest, should they care. I have no expectation that my customers should cut me or my company slack my allowing us to send them lousy audit reports, or do shitty audits, or forget to send them certificates and welding cards and such, because we happen to be understaffed right now. That’s OUR problem. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/25 "2010-12-11T02:52:16Z")
> [@Manwich](#): > > In my experience, teachers \*must \*use the software. What software? The software Sam believes automatically prints comments based on the grade alone, or the software some of us are familiar with, which enables teachers to select from a list of comments? There is a significant difference between the two. Even if there weren’t, if the comments are applicable to the kid, what is the problem? That they’re not nuanced enough? I know everyone wants specialized summary about their kid, but if the templates are accurate, I say we’re in the clear. If we actually had a special case on our hands, do you doubt the teacher would neglect to inform the parent? If so, that’s a bigger issue than auto-comments. If you honestly believe that the feedback is not a fair reflection of your kid’s aptitudes, and that the teacher is not making an effort to communicate what is not covered by what the software allows for, then talk to the teacher yourself. Otherwise, meh. ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/26 "2010-12-11T03:32:34Z")
Sorry, I used “software” as shorthand for “have to pick from a list of comments”. If the comments are entirely based on grade that’s really fucking stupid, but we both seem to doubt that’s the case. Anyway, my point was just that I prefer to be able to use my own words when writing comments and plenty of other teachers I know feel the same. It’s not only the special cases - I like to choose exactly what I am saying rather than having to make do with the closest approximation available. I am perfectly motherfucking capable of expressing myself in a calm and coherent manner - those cunts from admin can get fucked. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/27 "2010-12-11T06:45:40Z")
It’s possible that the software allows for choosing several comments for each grade, to better tailor the comment to the student. I don’t see evidence of that, because on my daughter’s report card, the comments for the various courses in which she got the same grade look identical, with the exception of “Good Work!” being appended to one of them. But in some ways, choosing from a list of canned comments is even worse. Not on an individual basis perhaps, where they might provide a little more data to parents, but on a systemic level. There’s all kinds of evidence that software which provides canned lists of choices like that can actually change cognitive behavior in the users. It teaches them to think categorically instead of in shades of gray. This is a problem similar to the problems Powerpoint is causing in a lot of firms. Powerpoint drives presentations towards many screens, each one filled with bulleted lists or short sentences. But not all issues in the world can or should be broken down in that fashion. However, heavy Powerpoint users have been found to actually have their thinking modified to fit the software - they start thinking of issues in terms of chunks of simple concepts. You might enjoy this: [Abraham Lincoln’s Powerpoint deck for the Gettysburg Address](http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/sld001.htm). It’s pretty funny, but it illustrates the limitations of using software to make shortcuts in analytical thinking and communication. Powerpoint has even been implicated in the Challenger disaster - the threat to the vehicle from the cold temperature and the O-rings was described by the engineers from the booster manufacturer, but it was a crappy powerpoint presentation that split the important factors across multiple slides and hid the relative importance of the factors in common bullet points, and upper management in NASA just didn’t get it. So maybe the best takeaway from this little discussion for the teachers in the thread is to be aware of this potential effect and do your best to keep the software from affecting the way you think about your students. The communication issue is a problem, but I can see that if you maintain other open lines of communication to parents and go out of your way to talk to them about the kids who have truly unique problems, that can be avoided. ---
**Author:** ![Manwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e480ec/32.png) [@Manwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manwich)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 7:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/28 "2010-12-11T07:56:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > So maybe the best takeaway from this little discussion for the teachers in the thread is to be aware of this potential effect and do your best to keep the software from affecting the way you think about your students. The communication issue is a problem, but I can see that if you maintain other open lines of communication to parents and go out of your way to talk to them about the kids who have truly unique problems, that can be avoided. Not really. Report comments might seem like a big deal to parents but in my experience the time and effort that goes into writing them is a tiny fraction of the time spent thinking about and tracking student behaviour and achievement. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/29 "2010-12-11T09:01:43Z")
It seems reasonable that, on top of the software generated report, teachers could add three or four sentences covering strength and weaknesses. That should only take a few hours. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2010, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/30 "2010-12-11T18:48:00Z")
> [@BlankSlate](#): > > It seems reasonable that, on top of the software generated report, teachers could add three or four sentences covering strength and weaknesses. That should only take a few hours. I wish. It is precisely because she tries to be thoughtful that it takes my wife, a first grade teacher, about one hour per student to create each report card. She has 20 students now, and will probably have more next school year because of budget cuts. She regularly has to pull an all nighter before each report card due date. (And she can’t start working on the report cards much earlier than she already does because they depend on the results of tests that occur on certain dates.) But \*\*Sam Stone \*\*would be pleased with the comments she writes. They are always pertinent, thoughful, and helpful. And often quite long. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/31 "2010-12-12T01:29:03Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Powerpoint has even been implicated in the Challenger disaster - the threat to the vehicle from the cold temperature and the O-rings was described by the engineers from the booster manufacturer, but it was a crappy powerpoint presentation that split the important factors across multiple slides and hid the relative importance of the factors in common bullet points, and upper management in NASA just didn’t get it. PowerPoint did not exist at the time, unless of course you’re referring to some predecessor software. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/32 "2010-12-12T02:10:37Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > You’re not bragging about you daughter, it’s just that usually she’s a straight-A student. Got it.[sup]\*[/sup] She got a C in _PHYS ED_, if that’s bragging: ur doin it rong! ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/33 "2010-12-12T02:20:28Z")
Well, Sam Stone, I taught high school for 26 years. The kind of overtime pay you’d be screaming for to do the amount of extra work you’re asking for here wasn’t ever offered to me. I don’t care that you don’t care. If your little darling’s getting good grades, how much more do you need? I’m glad I’m retired whenever I come across helicopter parents like you who want the world but don’t know what you’re asking others to do. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/34 "2010-12-12T02:27:46Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You know what? I don’t care. I don’t care about your time. I don’t care how hard your job is. NO parent should care. Their job is to get the best education for their kids, not to help teachers manage their workloads. That’s an issue for you to discuss with your supervisors, union officials, and elected school board trustees. > > Tell me - how would you feel if you got your car back from the auto shop and it was dirty and the repair was done sloppily, and when you complained about it the mechanic said, “You don’t understand! My job is HARD! My boss works me like a dog. I put in overtime, and I don’t see my kids enough. Do you know how hard those car manuals are to read? I’d have to read them on my own time!” > > What would your answer be? My guess is it would be something like this: “If you’ve got problems at work, that’s your problem. I’m not responsible for your shitty job or your relationship with your boss or how much you get paid. I contracted with you to do a good job on my car, and you didn’t do it. Give me my damned money back.” I suppose my reaction would depend on how long the mechanic had my car. If I came back to pick it up forty five minutes after I dropped it off, then yeah, I’d have to expect a pretty slipshod job. If I picked it up six months later, I’d expect it to be in damned near factory condition. The difference between an auto mechanic and a teacher is, the auto mechanic has a certain amount of leeway in how much time he has to dedicate to your car. If it’s going to take him six days to get the job done, he can tell you, “Come back in six days.” A teacher must complete their job in the time frame dictated by the school schedule. If there’s not enough time for her to do her job perfectly, she can’t just add a couple weeks to the schedule to get things finished up. It has to be done by a specific, inflexible deadline. If it takes six months to do a perfect job for all of her students, she can’t say, “Come back in six months.” She’s got to get everything done in five months, and has zero ability to change that. So something’s going to have to give. So, yeah, as a voter and a parent, you should care. If there’s not enough time in a school year for a teacher to do her job perfectly, _you’re_ the one who has control over that, either by voting for more money for schools to reduce class size, or by spending the cash directly to put your kid in a private school for the same result. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/35 "2010-12-12T02:38:38Z")
**Sam** , I’ve heard of teachers that write long narratives for their students–but they’re by far the exception, and it really surprises me to hear of it happening a long time ago, since it’s an idea that’s been gaining in popularity over the last few decades. Blaming technology for this is absurd. I have to do report cards by hand, and it’s a pain in my butt. We don’t have a template for mid-quarter progress reports, so I set up a mail merge that allows me to type them out. And guess what? Since I type much faster than I write, kids get commentary on the progress reports of a quality at least equal to what they get on report cards. Yeah, sometimes if I don’t have anything particular to say about a certain kid, they’ll get the “Sam is doing a great job in all academic areas” schtick, but that’s true whether I’m writing longhand or typing. Generally I think of specific things to say about each kid. As for your not caring about working conditions, too freakin’ bad. Teachers are paid for a limited amount of time. If you want them to do extra work, pay them to do extra work. If you want them to shift priorities, spending less time on lesson planning and more time on parental communication, let their bosses know. If you want them to work more hours for the same amount of pay, good luck with that; I look forward to your next complaint about how many people in the profession are unqualified, since the people who can get better jobs do. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/36 "2010-12-12T02:50:57Z")
> [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](#): > > She got a C in _PHYS ED_, if that’s bragging: ur doin it rong! In my school district we didn’t even get real grades for PE. Basically it was pass/fail You either got an **S** or a **U**. The only way you could get a U for a quarter was to _repeatedly_ skip class, forget you gym clothes, mouth off to the teacher, and/or blatently refuse to participate. Even then they had to get special permission from the guidence office to fail a student. It was impossible for anyone to be failed for the entire year. I showed up for less than half my gym classes senior year and still got Ss all four quarters. ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/37 "2010-12-12T02:56:09Z")
The district purchases the software. I am required to use it. The software does not have the option for me to write comments other than the ones provided by the program. ---
**Author:** ![sinjin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ebca7d/32.png) [@sinjin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinjin)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/38 "2010-12-12T03:46:00Z")
It’s obviously the liberal government’s fault. Back when times were the bestest ever we got report cards with letter grades and nothing else. Teachers knew parents, parents knew neighbors, everybody knew what everybody else was doing and we all liked each other real good. Nowadays, not so much. I blame the government. And teachers. And Obama.🆒 ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/39 "2010-12-12T05:24:31Z")
> [@Pai325](#): > > The district purchases the software. I am required to use it. The software does not have the option for me to write comments other than the ones provided by the program. Yeah, when I taught, I had to use the software and all it allowed me to do was put 4 numerical “comments” (which correlated to generic statements at the bottom of the page). One of the ones I could pick was a request for a conference, but ya. ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2010, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700/40 "2010-12-12T06:05:29Z")
> [@alphaboi867](#): > > In my school district we didn’t even get real grades for PE. Basically it was pass/fail You either got an **S** or a **U**. The only way you could get a U for a quarter was to _repeatedly_ skip class, forget you gym clothes, mouth off to the teacher, and/or blatently refuse to participate. Even then they had to get special permission from the guidence office to fail a student. It was impossible for anyone to be failed for the entire year. I showed up for less than half my gym classes senior year and still got Ss all four quarters. Yeah I’m not a gym teacher and I don’t have a report card I can give that would help his OP so he could assist his daughter in improving but I’m going to throw out something that I think would be key in bringing her into focus on improving her grade. QUIT FUCKIN’ AROUND DURING GYM CLASS. Then again, that’s not going to be one of the things you can select on the cookie-cutter form yet I am providing it here because I care. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cookie-cutter-report-card-generators-suck/563700.md?page=3)