Report Cards Can Hurt You

By Anastasia Toufexis

In Atlanta a mother beats her three children -- ages twelve, ten and eight -- with a rolling pin until they are black and blue. In Richmond a man forces his nephew to stand at attention and circles the boy while spitting on him. During a parent-teacher conference in Detroit, a woman grabs her twelve-year- old son, hits him in the face until he bleeds, then punches him in the ribs and walks out of the room. What did these children do to earn such treatment? They brought home report cards with poor grades.

In America's increasingly competitive society, the bad report card -- once fodder for Norman Rockwell and Leave It to Beaver -- is no longer a laughing matter. More and more social workers, educators and police are recognizing that report-card time can trigger a torrent of emotional and physical child abuse. While no national statistics are available, experts in communities nationwide say there is a spurt in the number of children suffering brutal beatings when report cards are sent home.

In Cobb County, Ga., police have reviewed accounts of child abuse for a two- year period and found that reports as much as double in the three days after school grades are issued. Many experts find that the problem intensifies toward the end of the academic year. Observes Rosalyn Oreskovich, area manager of children's protective services in Seattle: "From March to the end of June, our referral rate will rise dramatically. By spring, the parents' frustration has really built up."

The harsh reaction to poor grades is a symptom of deeper problems. "The cards may be an emotional lightning rod," explains child psychologist David Elkind of Tufts University, who notes that "grades are a concrete embodiment of many issues." For one thing, bad grades can unleash parents' anxieties about their social status and their children's prospects. To the poor, success in school offers a way for children to escape impoverished lives. Middle-class parents push their offspring to surpass their own accomplishments. And wealthy, well-educated people routinely expect stellar performances from youngsters.

In many families, good marks are equated with good parenting skills. Says Anne Cohn, executive director of the Chicago-based National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse: "Many parents take bad grades as a personal affront." Sometimes abusive parents are repeating the verbal assaults or - whippings that they received from their mothers and fathers.

Schools contribute to the problem. Often a disastrous report card is the first signal parents have that Johnny or Mary has been sailing too close to the academic shoals. Education specialists say that parents should receive progress notes throughout the year, and that report cards should praise a child's strengths and indicate a plan for dealing with weaknesses.

Child-welfare groups and educators in several areas are mounting public- education campaigns aimed at stopping the "report-card reflex." The programs, modeled after one begun in Houston by the Child Abuse Prevention Council, use newspaper ads, TV and radio announcements, school flyers mailed to students' homes and brochures inserted into report cards. All these materials contain the same basic message for parents: raising voices or fists is not the answer to raising grades.

With reporting by Janice M. Horowitz/New York and Michael Mason/Atlanta