"This was mid to late 90s by the way, my mid and "high" school time" You are probably the same age as me. :)
"I too find "digital child managing systems" rather dystopian, enabling parents to micro-manage their kids even more, which I am convinced is not good for the kid's overall development." The system in question is just a digital calendar essentially I think far to much malevolence is being attributed to such a simple tool.
I very much don't think packing the kids a lunch, reviewing their homework and seeing when their next tests are is micro managing, but obviously everyone is coming from different starting points.
My parents did not involve themselves in my schooling much at all. I graduated with straight A's, skipped school all the time, only did homework if it was graded and barely studied except for classes like chemistry or physics and went to college on a full ride. Then I failed out of college twice because no one had ever sat down with me taught me how to study and learn or made me think that study was important. I think I would have done much better at college if my parents had worked with me as a kid. Still love my parents though and think they were good parents.
My approach to other parents is I generally assume they are doing the best they can, mean well for their kids and will use whatever tools they have in that spirit.
What would have been helpful to me as a parent (while my children were enrolled in school) would have been a short weekly email, one from each teacher/class, simply summarizing the topic for the next week or two. That* would be useful in helping parents engage with their children before the material is covered in class. Instead my experience over the past four years has led me to believe that most teachers and school administrators are very poor communicators.
* Another option would be for teachers to provide a course syllabus at the start of each semester. But for whatever reason teachers no longer provide those, either because they think the online stuff is sufficient (it's not) or because they haven't planned ahead.
This is the important point most everyone here glosses over. It's hard to discipline a child and make them cooperate in a system of trust. It's much easier to eliminate the trust out. As a stressed parent (and lets be honest, every parent is a stressed parent) you don't have the time and patience for this. I think most of us on the opposite end of this discussion lament this.
In my opinion this is a type of failure you cannot, and should not optimize out. Children's personalities are different. Certain behaviors induce certain rewards and consequences. Failure is part of the development process of their personalities.
Homework and test prep was supposed to be managed by the students, not their parents, anyway, but most classes had just printed exercises and/or a sheet of what to expect in tests, so parents could always just check that. Test were also in about the same weeks of every semester, so my parents might not have known the exact dates unless they asked and I told them, but they knew that tests were happening. My parents kept interest, asked me how it was going regularly, if I needed help with something, when the tests are and what my results were, and so on. I think so it makes a big difference in the kid's experience if the parent asks them, or if the parent essentially goes over their head and consults some online resource.
I personally was too proud to want help with school work from my parents from an early age on, and even felt that it only slowed me down; I wanted to be outside with my friends not slowly working through the homework as a team exercise. My grades were good, so my parents let me do my stuff. My sisters (they are twins) needed some help in some areas (they are very likely partially dyslexic), and got it.
Should the grades of a student change abruptly for the worse or remain at a low level, teachers would just call up parents and discuss the situation and suggest ways to improve, and the semester reports had to be signed by a parent anyway, and that signature had to be presented at school.
This was mid to late 90s by the way, my mid and "high" school time. In elementary school my parents were still more hands-on, of course.
I too find "digital child managing systems" rather dystopian, enabling parents to micro-manage their kids even more, which I am convinced is not good for the kid's overall development. There has to be a balance between the parents need to care for a kid (and the care a kid actually needs, of course) and letting the kid grow up, and I feel such systems push that balance too much away from teaching kids self-reliance and let them make minor "educational" mistakes on their own.
Then again, I of course realize that each kid has it's own needs, and some need a fair bit of micro-management at times.
>what to dress them in
May I ask, how old are your kids? Sounds like they are still young, if you dress them? Then of course, more micro-managing makes more sense. The younger the more care kids need.