Volume 29 · Number 1 · Fall 2011
Parents
Illustration by Jay Leek/UC Davis
Who's driving now?
Legally, grades belong to students and that puts parents in the backseat.
I'd like to discuss your student's grades. Unfortunately, I can't. The Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, also known as FERPA, considers all college students to be adults—even the ones who wouldn't survive a half hour in the wild if their cell phone battery died—and the law protects the privacy of their academic records.
Because of FERPA, don't bother asking someone at the university about your student's grades, and don't inquire how many units your daughter is taking this term, or how she did on that art history midterm last week, or whether she's dropped out and spent her tuition money on a Harley. Without your kid's written consent, no one can tell you. It's the law. And don't call up the registrar's office pretending to be your college student—"Dude, I, um . . . forgot my GPA, could you, like, look it up for me?"—because it turns out they're pretty smart over there, and those front desk employees will just cover the mouthpiece with their hand and whisper to co-workers, "Parent on line 2."
Actually, the original intent of FERPA was more about protecting academic confidentiality from the FBI, the CIA and the NSA than it was about guarding GPAs from the MOM and the DAD. In 1974, Congress passed the act to shield educational records from executive branch bullies so that decades later, kids could cede their academic privacy to thousands of strangers on Facebook. Status update: "Bombed my art history midterm. :-( "
Whatever the intent, the effect of FERPA was to cut the parents of college students out of the loop. Back in the '70s, this didn't bother the parents of Baby Boomers one bit. They were a lot more concerned about their kids' long hair and leather vests and tie-dye skirts and hippie headbands than they were about academic performance. If you remember the styles from that era, you can understand their alarm.
Times have changed, and today's parents are a lot scarier than FBI agents. We're more uptight about grades. We don't want to be, but we have to be. It's a jungle out there, and either we raise our youngsters like a tiger mom, or else we send them off to college to be eaten by the other cubs.
It takes quite an effort to gain admission to a selective university—and not just on the part of the parents. Once students are in, we assume that kids who were at the top of the academic heap in high school will remain outstanding students in college, even though the competition is now composed of fellow high achievers and, statistically, someone will need to volunteer to occupy the bottom 90 percent of the class. As long as it's not our kid. We're afraid that if students don't earn good grades while they're undergrads, then they'll never be admitted to graduate school and they'll never get a decent job or a Nobel Prize, and they'll move back home and sit around the house all day in their flannel jammies posting snarky clips of the family on YouTube. And they'll probably leave their dirty dishes in the sink, too.
Plus, the cost of college just keeps climbing. If we're contributing financially, we want a return on the investment. I mean, our student's burgeoning critical reasoning skills are very impressive and all, but an outstanding university transcript feels like payback, something tangible a parent can hold onto, and possibly wave around in the face of that annoying neighbor whose kid did so well on her SATs.
College students feel the heat. They know we're sacrificing to support their education, and they don't want to let anyone down. The only thing protecting them from the formidable power of parents is good old FERPA.
By putting college students in charge of their academic careers, the law relegates parents to the backseat. We hate it back there—it makes us feel carsick, and we can never see where we're going. Anytime we want to know what's happening, we have to ask. Nicely! How do we let our kids know that as long as we're paying for gas, we expect some accountability?
There are two ways to accompany college students on their academic journey See below:
What kind of parental passenger are you?
Queasy Rider: Parents sit uncomfortably in the backseat with feet perched on the hump in the middle of the floor, trying to balance support and encouragement with reasonable expectations for their kid's academic performance.
—OR—
Backseat Driver: Parents lean forward anxiously with both hands on the driver's seat, telling their kid exactly where to go and the best shortcuts to take, occasionally gasping and shouting "Brake!"
QR In order for us to pay your tuition, you'll need to grant us online access to bills.
BD Welcome to the bank of Mom and Dad. We hope you read the fine print.
QR We don't expect you to get all A's. We do expect you to work hard.
BD We assume that if you work hard, you will get all A's.
QR We worry that you may feel too stressed by academic demands.
BD Unless you are not getting all A's.
QR We expect to see your grades at the end of each term.
BD We'd also like updates on every single quiz, test or paper, including the high and low scores for the class, as well as the mean, median and standard deviation.
QR We will love you even if you have lousy grades.
BD We will love you, but we will not inform the grandparents.
QR Learning has intrinsic value.
BD But grades are what will get you into graduate school.
QR Not all learning experiences in college take place in the classroom.
BD Some take place in the library.
QR Taking advantage of campus tutoring won't compromise your independence.
BD If you Skype, Dad can help you study for physics.
QR Academic integrity is much more important than
good grades.
BD If you cheat, don't get caught.
Robin DeRieux can be reached at rdderieux@yahoo.com.