Education: Who's Leaving Our Children Behind?

Public Education:

It is no secret that our public system of education has a tarnished reputation. There are no shortages of reasons as to why this perception exists. Our high school graduation rates are at an all time low, our children’s academic scores are tanking, and young people are entering the work world lacking the necessary educational tools needed to succeed.

Early in the Bush administration our educational system was given the ‘No Child Left Behind’ directive. This was an unfunded mandate that required our schools to put our children through a series of test. The goal was not to necessarily evaluate our children but to assess the quality of education that our children are receiving. The idea is that if students score well than the schools must be doing a good job. If children tested poorly than something must be wrong with the school.

Now, this type of program seems, on the surface, to make sense, but in reality the ‘No Child Left Behind’ is a monumental failure. Here is why:

Our public school systems may not be a model of productivity or efficiency; however, they are by and large doing a great job of providing the quality education that our children need. The ugly and politically incorrect truth, which no one wants to address, is that our children are doing poorly in school not because of ineffective teachers or because of an inadequate academic curriculum. No, the real truth is that our children are failing because we as parents are failing. We are failing to be partners with our children’s teachers and as a result our children are paying the price.

When children do poorly in school we tend to blame someone and all too often we blame the school system or the teachers. Well, this is misplaced blame. Our teachers are there everyday providing a quality education and working diligently to develop young minds. The problem is that our children come home to disinterested parents. There is an old saying that says, ‘Teaching is performed at school, learning is done at home.’ If a child goes home and he or she does not have a parent to supervise their homework studies or to provide educational guidance than that child will not consider education to be a priority in their lives. As a result, his or her school work goes undone and test scores drop.

I feel very comfortable in saying that children who fail in school have parents who are failing their children. It is not the schools sole responsibility to impress upon our children a good work ethic. Creating and developing academic skills is first, the responsibility of the parents. If you have a child that comes home and you have no idea of weather or not your child has homework or if you have a child in school and you are not on a first name basis with his or her teacher, than you are failing your child.

My wife taught high school and one of her biggest frustrations were that the only parents who would come to parent teacher conferences were the parents of the children who were doing well in school. The children who were failing and whose parents needed to be at the parent teacher conferences the most, would consistently fail to show.

Our school systems are doing a great job of supplying our children with a quality education. But if you think that the entire job of educating your child falls on the shoulders of the teachers than you are wrong and you are a failing your child.

It simply does not make sense that in any one class room the majority of children do well and achieve passing grades, while a smaller percentage fail. If we have the majority of children passing then why are the others in the same classroom failing? The answer is this: Failing students are not living up to their responsibilities of paying attention in class and doing their homework. Parents of these failing students are not ensuring that their children are completing their work and are not around for their child when he or she needs help. In fact, often times these parents have absolutely no idea of what is going on in their child’s academic life. They never come to school to talk to the teacher. They never volunteer to participate in school programs and they simply fail to understand that it is their parental duty to help educate their own child.

Being a parent of a school age child is an awesome responsibility. We as parents need to be incredibly proactive in our children’s school system. We need to know the specifics about our child’s school day. We need to devote time, everyday, to helping and ensuring that our children’s homework is completed. And we need to stop complaining about the quality of our schools and start being a supporter of the institutions that are working so hard to educate our children.

As always, our government response to declining graduation rates and poor academic performance is to start a new program to ‘fix’ the problem. It is politically incorrect to tell the truth, which is that parents basically are not engaged in the education of their child.

Jeff