The following article I thought hit it right on the head when pointing out the apathy of parents when it comes to their education. Parents to a fault are trusting administrators and teachers to do right by their children. Many parents just could careless to get involved with what is going on at their government run schools. Hint: Government Run Schools!! That is enough information one needs to get involved. With government anything money seems to fly and where it goes no one knows.
In addition I would say that if parents were not so apathetic we could have known about CSCOPE years ago.
Parents, not curriculum, responsible for academic apathy
By Dave Mundy/manager@gonalescannon.com
Posted March 28, 2013 – 11:08am
The last few meetings of the Luling ISD Board of Trustees have seen some pointed questioning of the district’s administration and the board from parents, community members and even board members themselves over that district’s decision to bore ahead whole-heartedly wih the CSCOPE curriculum management system.
The district’s wisdom in going all out on use of the system at a time when its academic accreditation is at stake has drawn some pointed questions.
Over the past year or so, I’ve looked extensively at CSCOPE from top to bottom. It has its flaws, to be sure —the worst being the fact that it has, in several places, a very clear, very liberal/globalist political bias.
But CSCOPE itself is not the cause of problems in the Luling ISD; if that were the case, we’d have a similar dire situation in every surrounding district which uses CSCOPE, including Gonzales, Waelder, Nixon-Smiley and Yoakum.
The issue in Luling is about the achievement levels of specific racial, ethnic and economic demographics — and that’s a problem which is not the fault of any curriculum, teacher or administrator.
The problem is parents who are part of a culture that just doesn’t care.
For much of the last 30 years, I’ve covered public education issues from the local level to the state level to the national level. The research I’ve done in compiling in-depth stories and even a book has led me to a traditionalist view of education sharply opposed to the Deweyism currently in favor among the education elitists.
I’ve covered, and debated, the primacy of phonics-first instruction over Whole Language/“balanced literacy” programs, the importance of skills and drills in early-grade math versus the “manipulatives” and “relevance” advocates who created “fuzzy math,” and the importance of teaching history instead of “social studies.”
But you can have the best Phonics-first program around, the best Saxon Math and the best history program emphasizing American exceptionalism — and still have failing students if those children have parents who do not actively take a role in their kids’ educational achievement.
The failure is a cultural one among parents, especially those who are poor. Among African-Americans, Hispanics and whites who struggle financially, parents tend to be less adept at helping their children get the education they need to climb out of the cycle of poverty.
In fact, there are even some indications that some parents don’twant their children to do better in life than they did. I won’t term them “lazy” — but they all too often fail to communicate a positive work ethic to their children.
Curiously, that attitude affects those of Asian descent far less, regardless of their income bracket. Students of Asian descent tend to achieve at higher levels than other groups because higher expectations are set by parents. Parents who are more affluent also tend to produce better students — again, because more is expected of those students, not because of any technological advantage attributable to wealth.
Those are documented facts. We can throw as much money as we want to at public education. We can build Taj Mahal facilities and equip every kid with a laptop and IPOD, we can use any curriculum system we want to — and Johnny still won’t be able to read if Mom and Dad don’t set high educational expectations for him and get him out of the “urban street” culture which defines and glorifies failure.
While there is ample evidence that outcomes-based education — the core foundation of all modern public education today — is part of the problem for its focus on the affective (values and feelings) realm, the problem is that too many parents won’t do their job, and expect government to do it.
Here in Texas over the last three decades, the politicians have attempted to legislate schools into doing what parents should be doing. We have created pre-pre kindergarten and interventions, we have forced schools to continue to educate kids who should rightfully be starting their lifelong association with the county jail, we have schools feeding kids meals which should be the job of their parents. In some places, they even have schools running after-school programs and — yes — day-care programs for children of students.
And the failures continue to mount.
We can create all the new curriculum systems and test systems we want, but until we convince a lot of parents to start doing their jobs, we will continue to be plagued by academic apathy.
