During the 2011-12 school year, Roxanne Greitz Miller was a professor-in-residence at a California middle school that had just implemented an online grade book that allowed parents and students to see students’ grades as soon as they were posted to an app. I recently spoke to Miller, who is now the dean of the College of Educational Studies at Chapman University, and she said it was clear to her almost immediately that this technology was “game changing” for parents, teachers and students — and not in a good way. Mitch Foss, who was a classroom teacher in Colorado for 19 years, told me that when he posted grades, he would hear from kids almost instantly via email or text. Sometimes they’d be waiting outside his classroom door to talk about their scores. “You might get emails from parents questioning the grade, wanting an explanation, and that’s for every single thing,” even assignments that had little bearing on students’ overall marks, “which can be overwhelming.”

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Persons: Roxanne Greitz Miller, Miller, —, “ I’ll, ‘, it’s, ”, I’ve, Mitch Foss, they’d, “ Organizations: College of Educational, Chapman University Locations: California, Colorado