I think we have this and it was idiotic. The student fills out a form ahead of time stating what they would like to improve on, lists a couple ways they could do this, what they need, etc. The whole 10 min. that we had with DD were spent trying to get her to say something meaningful, that I did not have any time at all to discuss my REAL concerns or ask any questions. I suppose it is a good opportunity for a child to make it known that they want more challenge in a certain area, and it could lead to a discussion about that, but I just don't think the odds of that going anywhwere are going to be very high. I really wanted to just talk to the teacher and ask some questions with DD and DS left in the hallway, but it wasn't possible so nothing of real significance was discussed at all.
I bet a lot of schools are going to this "model" so that the teacher is essentially off the hook. I think it might work Ok for Jr. High or high school, but for elementary, it's a disaster (or at least, that was my experience with it--that I walked away from the conference feeling like it went no where and I still had no idea what was going on in school).
