An Open Letter on Education Reform to Hube
Hube,
I think you are wrong about a lot and seem to be driven by a need to be on the opposite side of “liberals” regardless of the issue. However, I’ve always deferred to you on issues of education and education reform and I’m asking for your opinion on “parental accountability.”
It seem the teachers want more money for the paraprofessionals this year and Castle wants something very vaporous and palatable to a large number of people no doubt. But the missing link in accountability is parental accountability.
What form should parental accountability take and what, if anything, can a state legislature do to move us toward more and better parental accountability?
– Jason
What matters is how the system responds when parental accountability fails.
This topic came up on another blog which shall remain nameless.
Why do we need to legislate parental accountability? If parents/caretakers want to work with their charges, then so be it. If they don’t, the kids will end every sentence with “Would you like fries with that?”
I talked to a friend who home-schooled (Like Lisa Simpson said: “Home schooling is not just for whackos anymore.”). He pointed out that his success was not so much that the home-school curriculum was any better than that of the public school; the key difference is that he spent time with his kids on school work.
In short conclusion, I do not want to waste any tax dollars on a parent/caretaker who doesn’t want to and won’t spend time on academics with their kids.
Jase: Thanks for the shout out. Disbelief’s comment is pretty much on the money. I don’t think you can legislate this accountability; thus, this means that any sort of teacher accountability has to take THIS into account. IOW, you cannot expect teachers’ jobs to rest on whether parents actually give a shit about their kids’ education.
Since it’s unlegislatable (is that a word?), a good solution would be to make it much easier for public schools to get rid of chronically disruptive students. What the state could do (so no go**amn referendum would be needed) is give each district an alternative school for such kids.
Sounds good, perhaps, but it won’t happen. First, the obvious — money. But the [racial] politics involved would be enough alone to scuttle this idea.
There was an article about the Capitol School District renting a building for the ‘alternative’ kids here in Kent County. From the math in the article, they’re spending about $100,000.00 per kid per year for the kids who take the other kids lunch money. That too is ridiculous.
I certainly was not advocating alternative schools merely for “kids who take the other kids lunch money.” Or didn’t you bother to read what I wrote, namely the “chronically disruptive” part?
I think ‘chronically disruptive’, ‘alternative’, and ‘mean little bastards who took our lunch money’ are all pretty much the same.
It would be impossible and fruitless to try to “save” parents but we can “save” their children. Education is the great equalizer.
Alternative schools are indeed a must for Delaware and while they cost more, they deliver a good rate of return for those who attend and for those who are in regular class rooms free of aggressive and disruptive students.
The paraprofessional deserve more than poverty wages and teachers deserve orderly classrooms.
Let’s face it, Charter Schools and Home schooling is having a profound effect on public school populations. Kids are leaving for better alternatives.
I think ‘chronically disruptive’, ‘alternative’, and ‘mean little bastards who took our lunch money’ are all pretty much the same.
Well, you’re wrong.
Mike,
”We can do better,” can’t we?
Don’t forget the success other states have had with very early childhood intervention. Like programs aimed at mothers and infants, mothers and toddlers, get ’em early. It works. And it’s a lot cheaper in the long run than reform schools. But it has to be available to everyone, not just the impoverished. The middle class needs help too.
Great point Rebecca. In France the preschool teachers need masters degrees TO START. (and it works! All those kids can speak fluent French – it is amazing! *rimshot*)
Hube,
Thanks for your perspective. I guess my urge to legislate some kind of parental accountability springs from the injustice of putting the bulk of the “accountability” on teachers when many parents fail to “buy in” to school academic and discipline routines.
The thing is, how would you enforce parental accountability?
How would the system respond to parental failure?
Typically systems punish non-compliance with jail, or loss of membership.
So what are ya gonna do – kick the kid out of school? Put the parents in jail or fine them?
Or are you going to give the kids the support they need to make up for what they aren’t getting from their parents?
Jason brings up another sore point; putting ‘accountability’ on teachers.
The ‘accountability’ is on the caretakers/parents, period. If there is no academic and discipline routines imposed outside of school, the teachers simply cannot do anything other than babysit. The school experience is NOT, as per Woody Allen, “just showing up.”
Disbelief’s #10 is so correct I almost cried. (No, not really.) I just wish policymakers and wannabe policymakers (like Protack) would actually listen to those in the trenches and stop with the top-down theorizing.
Yet, Hube, you won’t agree to my ‘bottoms up’ theory that if the kids and their in locus parenti don’t give a shit, we should have them tar roofs in August to get an idea of what its like to live without an education.
If not a legislative issue, I think this could at least be a campaign issue since most voters probably view themselves as the “good” style parent and I know most teachers (who are highly politicized) would vote for a candidate that said – “let’s get the parents to be accountable too.”
Yet, Hube, you won’t agree to my ‘bottoms up’ theory that if the kids and their in locus parenti don’t give a shit, we should have them tar roofs in August to get an idea of what its like to live without an education.
Who says? 🙂
Actually, Jason, that platform would lose votes as being accusatory toward parents, as in:
“Who the hell is he (the candidate) talking about with this accountability? I’m accountable, dammit! That SOB better not be calling me accountable!”
And if you don’t believe that its the worst parents with the greatest amount of denial about their lack of parenting skills, ask (shudder) Hube. And if Hube agrees with this premise, tell him that the worst ones are usually Republicans too.
My doctor, a long time friend, told me to lose some weight. I said,
“Why didn’t you just give me a pill for it?” He said,
“I do that with most patients. However, pills are simply a stop-gap measure. The real problem is behavior. Your behavior involves eating too much. However, since I know you personally, I’m not afraid to tell you the real problem: behavior. With most of my patients, if you tell them the truth, that the problem is behavior, they get personally insulted. Its much easier to give them a pill.” I think this follows along the lines of a candidate telling parents its THEIR fault. Its much easier to blame it on the teacher.
So….give them a pill to make them better parents.
Cinchy!!
They have one, it’s called Ritalin.
No, he meant for the parents, that’s valium.
As for parental accountability, I have a pretty exaggerated example from my former life as a Special Ed teacher. The staff would literally have hours of meetings about any given student in a month. We would design structured environments, meaningful reinforcement schedules, behavior modification procedures, the works…
The biggest predictor on student behavior in the classroom was whether or not these same things were being executed the other 8 waking hours when they went home. Sure, we were professionals, but there had to be more than going home to watch TV and do whatever they please.
I don’t know the solution, but there are some crappy parents out there that do crappy jobs.
From where I’m sitting I can see a few problems:
1. Class size is too large
2. Schools are using 19th century tools to teach digital age kids
3. Parental responsibility (as noted above)
4. Closure of trade schools over the past 15 years
4a. The absurd notion that everyone should go to college
5. Keeping some kids in school longer than they should be
6. Inability to expel persistently problematic students
Duffy is spot on.