POST: Power School

I do not understand why schools are buying Power School,
Curriculum Mapper and other programs. It almost seems like
they want to overload their teachers so the managers can
have an excuse, or to keep teachers under their power.
Really, I don't get it. I keep wondering about this when I
do grades, write curriculum, etc. The programs they make
teachers use are so cumbersome.

I think most teachers are used to Microsoft Word and Excel.
Excel is great for calculations, analysis of grades,
adjusting grades as necessary (to balance student motivation
for example). The vast majority of teachers do this. Even
principals want this done. Have principals taught long
enough to know the most efficient methods?
I just keep thinking - what is up with all of this? Is it
that everyone wants to be a manager and no one has been in
the trenches. (Maybe that is it. I am thinking now of some
of the teaching interviews where I was told that "nowdays"
[back in the 90's] they want managers more than academic
specialists.)

Ok, I like Power School because it is easier to communicate
with parents. Of course parents should be supportive and
not join in overwhelming the teachers. What I don't like
about Power School is how its Power Grade grading program is
so different. Why can't I take my Excel grades and just
paste them into Power Grade? Power Grade looks like a
program that would take a tremendous amount of programming
by the company to allow grades to be pasted. It also looks
like it would be difficult at this point for the programmers
to build more Excel like features into Power Grade. How did
Power School get this far? Did teachers have any input into
this? What teachers? What kind of teachers - wanna-be mangers?

I always enter the same grades into Power Grade as I do in
Excel. I use Excel as a back up and check. I run the two
systems side by side on the monitor. Most every time there
is a discrepancy. Sometimes it is in the Power Grade entry
and sometimes it is in the Excel calculations. I want to
keep doing this, but I wish I could just copy and paste my
Excel grades into Power Grade. Did the programmers realize
this should be done?

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