Alert: Your child missed an assignment today

I know what my son's homework is: I know about the spelling assignments and the online math homework and the reading comprehension sheets and all the additional projects. I know all of this, of course, because my son's teacher sends notes - both physical and over email - on a very regular basis.

But I also recognize that it is easy for me to keep up with all of his assignments because he is only in first grade, and part of the assignment is getting him used to the process of doing homework. The goal is that he will be able to keep track of it all on his own one day, because homework is his responsibility. (Side note: He doesn't seem very accepting of the idea when I tell him how long he may have homework in his life, even after he has a job, but I am pretty sure that is normal.)

We struggle a bit, but we make homework one of our son's priorities. But there are lots of families who aren't able to get their child into the homework groove, which, by the teenage years, can be detrimental. So, researchers have been experimenting with various ways to get parents more involved in their student's academic lives. It turns out that texts may work. By linking student's performance to an online teacher workbook, one school was able to alert parents to missed assignments, skipped classes and other notes from teachers.

The results included more parental interaction in the school and their child's academic life, so that is promising news. But then, my question becomes whether or not parents should still be checking up on their student's work by high school. The teams haven't moved the test to middle schools yet to see what the results are, but it would make sense to me to tackle the homework/schoolwork problem as early as possible.

Would you want to get a text if your child missed an assignment? Tell me in the comments.