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Nor were teachers always willing to call a spade a spade. Teachers by and large are well-meaning people who want to think the best of their students. They are well aware of the dangers of labeling people and do not wish to upset parents. Unfortunately parents may not be clued in to the real meaning of what a teacher is trying to say. When teachers say that Annie is working hard and will improve with effort, they really mean that she is in trouble and likely to find the work too difficult. Annie’s parents, however, read the comment literally and assume that as long as Annie keeps working, things will be fine. Researchers report that many teachers emphasize effort over achievement, especially in the case of students who are judged to be non-academic. Such teachers reward students who try their best, regardless of how well they actually do. Or rather, doing well is defined as doing one’s best, whether or nor one reaches the prescribed standard. One teacher explained his approach to evaluating students this way: “So you tend to judge kids on how they perform in class in relation to other kids. But I try to do it on the progress of the basement waterproofing Toronto child. What progress is he or she making? Are their writing techniques getting better? That kind of thing. So a B to one child would mean a completely different thing to a B for another child.” In many cases, however, parents, and certainly employers, want to know just what a B means in terms of a general standard.

Parents have to take some responsibility here, but to say this does not get rid of the problem. Not all parents visit schools, and in these days of working parents and single parents, often cannot even if they want to. They want to know just what the schools are trying to achieve and how they will measure whether or not they have achieved it. In other words, they want clear standards of performance and some way of ensuring accountability. In 1998 there was a minor controversy in Manitoba about provincial testing of grade three students. A small number of parents boycotted the test, on the grounds that grade three children were too young and that the test would not prove anything anyway. The majority of parents, however, supported the test as a way of finding out how well their children’s schools were doing.