I just came back from a meeting with Jonah's school principal. We had a chat about the curriculum for the 6th grade, and then the conversation turned to the current climate around education.
She was furious about the growing attacks on teachers. She said that her teachers were working very hard. Yes, the test scores went down again in our school, but they've gone down across the entire state. She said that educators didn't know why that was happening. She said that there's a limit to what teachers can do if the kids have low IQs and if the parents aren't involved.
She complained that she spent the summer dealing with girls bullying each other using e-mails and text messages. At the same time, she offers a parenting class on Internet security and nobody attends the meeting. She said that parents are so busy that they aren't involved in the kids' school work. In fact, some parents pull their kids out of school, because they say that their kids are too stressed out. Some parents want their kids to do less work in school.
While I think that schools could be doing a lot better, I do agree with much of what Principal H said. Schools aren't going to change until parents change.
Apt. 11d 
What are we thinking of as ‘fault’ here – that they’re all not heading for Princeton? Unlike in Lake Wobegone, here in the rest of the country, half the children are below average. I think the schools are successful if they enable the kids to reach their reasonable level of performance.
Yes, parents can sabotage their kids, or just fail to help them grow, as can the mean queens of the second grade cafeteria.
We keep having the idea that if magic teachers are not rescuing kids from everything and sending them off to Princeton, there’s something wrong. Not true. Sounds like Principal H. is in fact paying attention to the mean queens of the second grade cafeteria, and that’s good.
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I can understand how the principal would be furious, but I hope she sees how some of this mess might be the fault of teachers and administrators. Maybe sometimes their incompetence, ineffectiveness and illogic could have a negative effect on students and parents, thus encouraging apathy.
“At the same time, she offers a parenting class on Internet security and nobody attends the meeting.”
At our open house last week, the teacher responsible for teaching internet security described the dangers of “Spacebook”. She stopped herself and then asked the parents, “That’s what it’s called, right?”
Then she told us the DARE officer would be spending six weeks in her class, administering a program that has no demonstrated efficacy in deterring substance abuse.
Maybe we should give more credit to the parents who pull their kids out of school.
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Everyone involved is at fault but here’s my anecdote for the day about moron school administrators: My youngest daughter is in 6th grade and broke her arm last Friday on a school field trip. Because she has a cast up to her shoulder we told her not to worry about tucking in her uniform shirt. We figured the school would understand. We also told her not to worry about a belt because there’s no way she can put it on with one hand. She came home today with string tied around her waist, which is the standard punishment for no belt. The crazy thing is though, no one made her tuck her shirt in.
Explain the logic in that one to me?
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I hear a lot about the importance of parental involvement in kids’ schoolwork. Unfortunately, every time I make the effort to figure out what my kids are doing in school, their work appears to be pointless. I suspect that the teachers would prefer I stay out of it rather than say what I actually think.
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Unfortunately, every time I make the effort to figure out what my kids are doing in school, their work appears to be pointless.
I think that’s what they call course work that prepares you for a place in the modern economy.
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I’ll never forget the time my younger son’s teachers called me in for a meeting only to accuse me of keeping him home from school and claiming he was sick. They had no explanation for why I would even want to do this, of course. When I explained that I worked full time and his sick days were costing me at work, they didn’t even apologize for the accusations. Later he was diagnosed with asthma and allergies (those weren’t colds he was getting, it turns out), and yet the schools wouldn’t let him carry his own meds–not even a rescue inhaler!
Teachers are only human, they can be wrong about stuff just like anybody else. They also do stupid things just like anybody else sometimes. They can be alcoholics and drug abusers just like anybody else.
Of course it’s not all up to them, but if kids have bad parents, teachers have the opportunity to be the only good adult influence in a kid’s life. Why shouldn’t we ask them to step up to that challenge instead of blaming parents for everything? After all, unless public schools are better on average than home schooling (which at least implies that teachers have some responsibility for how kids turn out in school) why do we bother to have them?
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What does your principal say about the success of charter schools dealing with the exact same student populations? You can’t pass on a child because of their “low IQ” in a charter school. I’ve worked in the educational bureaucracy and am in public schools everyday — it’s easy to get caught up in defending the status quo. It is very hard to make huge changes, such as reorganizing the entire school system in a town, but that’s what I think needs to be done. The current system is broken and fixing it piecemeal — new curriculum, more homework, better technology — is not enough. That is the advantage of a charter school. Yes, some charter schools are no better than their public school neighbors, but at least they can start from scratch, be innovative and are not beholden to multiple layers of bureaucracy.
I used to defend the administrators and teacher’s unions, but honestly I’m tired of their patronizing tone. “We know what’s best for your children.” “Trust us.” “It’s not our fault, you need more parent education.” What about teacher’s unions giving an inch? I know good teachers work hard, but what about the teacher that do not. We should not have to cross our fingers and hope they retire before it becomes our problem.
I’m not saying that parents are blameless, but I agree with Sarah, they don’t really want us to get involved. They want us to raise money and crack the whip at home regardless of the pointless nature of some of the homework. They want us to trust them, but after multiple decades of a system in decline, it’s hard to keep up the faith.
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“Later he was diagnosed with asthma and allergies (those weren’t colds he was getting, it turns out), and yet the schools wouldn’t let him carry his own meds–not even a rescue inhaler!”
I’ve never known of a school where kids carry their own inhalers. My son is supposed to go to the nurse for meds if he needs them (he has an inhaler and used to have a nebulizer).
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I carried an inhaler in school. Also Benadryl. Also Skoal, but that would have gotten me in trouble if I’d have been caught by any non-coach teacher.
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It was a while ago, but I used to carry an inhaler in school. I think also Benadryl.
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Some charters schools have been very successful, but I don’t think they are dealing with ‘the exact same population’. Most public schools would love to educate a population, no matter how disadvantaged, whose parents had applied for a spot.
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“I’ve never known of a school where kids carry their own inhalers. My son is supposed to go to the nurse for meds if he needs them (he has an inhaler and used to have a nebulizer).”
When my oldest was in public school in DC, the official policy was that all medication needed to be administered by a nurse. However, the nurse was only half-time. I have no idea how that worked out for asthmatics, kids with peanut allergies, etc.
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My son attends a charter school and is allowed to carry his own inhaler. We submit a form to the school nurse signed by his pediatrician stating that he’s competent to administer his own medication.
In terms of the charter versus ordinary public school: I think as Lee said above, the fact that parents choose to apply to the school makes a difference, regardless of the demographics. Ours is not an affluent population, but it is definitely not as economically and ethnically diverse as regular public schools. The main advantage that I see is that it’s smaller, and that classwork is more closely aligned with where my kids are intellectually and developmentally. There’s less bureaucracy.
However, we struggle mightily with finding time to crack the whip and do the homework (which mostly is not pointless, but sometimes boring, and certainly time consuming). I often think that the homework is a lesson to parents–teachers are trying to show us parents how hard they have to work to get our kids to do this stuff all day in class. I work part-time and made time to volunteer the last 3 years, but gave up this year. It’s very stressful for me to find time in my work day. I love getting to see what my kids are up to in class, I like interacting with the other kids and getting to know the teachers, but with travel time and waiting around for my time slot to begin it was a 3 hour chunk out of my six hour day. My kids are not stressed, I think, compared to public school kids. So far there’s very little bullying, they can enforce stricter standards of behavior and so that part of it is simpler. But even working part-time, I find it hard to do a few activities a week, do the homework, allow them time for play, and make decent dinners. These days I feel pretty virtuous when I get the various fieldtrip and homework forms and money for pizza day turned in on time.
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“I often think that the homework is a lesson to parents–teachers are trying to show us parents how hard they have to work to get our kids to do this stuff all day in class.”
I completely agree. Why else would teachers in kindergarten assign homework? Our kids are not failing because of a lack of homework. They study and study and don’t learn anything. Something is missing and we have to stop blaming the kids and parents.
In terms of charter schools not serving the same populations, I believe today the schools in the large urban districts often serve very similar populations. Thousands of students apply every year to the best charter schools and most do not get a slot. The most recent studies compare the data for students who applied but did NOT get into a charter as well as the students who applied and attended. If parent initiative is a factor, then in both groups the parents would appear to have similar levels of initiative and concern.
The bottom line? Charter schools are smaller and are not restricted by district bureaucracy and union contracts. Unlike most public schools, they have the freedom to try new things.
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When I worked as an ed assistant in the early 90s that was the complaint as well. I bought into it pretty wholesale – and there were egregious cases like the lawyer/architect parents who couldn’t read ONE book a day to their non-reading 8 year old because they didn’t have time and their nanny couldn’t read English.
But as I’ve become a parent (2-WOHP family making well under $150k/yr) I’ve seen so many parents I know are involved with their kids struggle with the schools on this issue.
And I do believe some schools and some teachers are just entirely missing the mark in their expectations.
They want healthy, active, well-rested and nourished kids who also get all their homework done. I’m not doubting there are families that manage but I’m less convinced that we’ll always be one of them. Right now at 5 my son goes to bed at 7:30. We all get home at 5:30. I have an hour commute, so I leave at 4 to accomplish that – and that’s a usual/average commute in my city.
I don’t think that’s totally unreasonable. But it does leave us only two hours to play, play outdoors, talk, cook, eat and bathe (although we’ve moved bathe to the morning). 20-30 minutes of homework would be a lot, especially for a boy who needs to move around. If it were assigned on a weekly basis that would be fine. But daily could be really hard.
The school does have 6+ hours a day. In the early elementary years I really think a small amount of homework is fine but schools should be concentrating more on making use of the time they have and less on trying to manage the “partnership” with the parents — which mostly comes down to “parents, please do what we want you to do.”
This post has stuck with me too, although it’s much more about high school which I do think is a different story: http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=133
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“In fact, some parents pull their kids out of school, because they say that their kids are too stressed out.”
Guilty as charged. But my daughter is one of those good students who have 4-6 hours of homework every night. I kept her home at least once a month so she could catch up on her work. She goes to a public school- but it is one of those New Tech Foundation ones where group projects predominate. There is so much pressure and so many demands (some of them ridiculous) and then some overly prescriptive requirements, that many the time I had to talk her down (or pitch in to make up for classmates’ deficits). So I guess where I am going is that we can try different things, but in the experimentation real kids are going to suffer. I think we can do a better job of educating our children, but I think we have to look hard and long at the choices and not rush into short term, unproven fixes. As for involved parents, I am one of those parents who the teachers hate. I am constantly pointing out the emperor has no clothes and it makes me unpopular.
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She said that parents are so busy that they aren’t involved in the kids’ school work. In fact, some parents pull their kids out of school, because they say that their kids are too stressed out. Some parents want their kids to do less work in school.
While I think that schools could be doing a lot better, I do agree with much of what Principal H said. Schools aren’t going to change until parents change.
I don’t think it’s a winning formula to require parents to be involved in students’ school work. I perceive an increase in the amount of work parents are expected to take on. The schools expect parents to operate as students’ drill sergeants and personal assistants. This is a new expectation on the schools’ part. My parents were never expected to correct my homework, nor to jump in to reteach concepts, nor were they expected to drop everything to drive across town to facilitate group project work time.
In my opinion, this expectation that parents will run their children’s lives springs from a basic misunderstanding of what “parents who are involved and interested in their children’s schooling” means. It means you make certain the child is not floundering in class. You make sure the child is doing his homework. You speak with teachers if necessary. You move house, if the local school system doesn’t meet your child’s needs.
It does not mean that schools should be teaching parents to be helicopter parents. Assigning overly complicated homework to middle schoolers does the middle schoolers no good if the parents do it. It’s also brutally unfair to children whose parents both work, or whose parents refuse to compete in the “most involved parent” sweepstakes.
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you guys are freaking me out! Signed, a kindergarten parent in public school! (who hates group projects).
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