Apathetic parents is the most significant factor in the low performance of Washington, D.C.’s public schools, according to D.C. residents surveyed in a Washington Post poll.
Seven in 10 D.C. residents believe the city’s public schools are performing inadequately, with the lack of parental involvement still cited as the biggest problem facing the nearly 50,000-student system, a Washington Post poll has found.
People with children attending public schools are the most critical.
In addition to the lack of parent involvement, three-quarters of those surveyed cited the condition of buildings and other facilities, disruptive students, and the presence of violence or crime as “big problems.”
I can’t believe it has taken this long to figure this out. In general apathetic parents are the biggest problem, anecdotally speaking. All the NCLB’s or other programs can really make that much headway if the parents don’t support rigorous learning for their children.
Now its end justifies the means for the parents. Yes I understand there are degrees but its “as long as you get the A I don;t care how you do it.”
Oddly enough, the distribution of apathetic parents doesn’t appear to be random. Some schools seem attract a disproportionate number of parents eager to be involved in their child’s education while other schools are at the opposite end of the scale. It’s a mystery.
But as long as the problem’s diagnosed all that’s needed is a better class of parent and public education will succeed. Oh yeah, success also requires more money. Let’s not forget that.
Yes, parental apathy is a problem but for other reasons. If parents became more involved in their childrens education perhaps they would push the schools to provide better quality curriculum, fight the union in order to fire ineffective teacher and dismantle the restrictive salary schedule and ask for vouchers so they can send their children to the school of their choice.
I’ve argued for a long time that the problem is actually bigger than “parental apathy”. It’s societal apathy:
http://roborant.info/main.do?entry=1375
We, as a society, don’t visibly value education. We value athletic skills, entertainment skills and physical beauty, but not education. The idea that it takes a good education to even be a good citizen has almost completely died out. The message to our kids couldn’t be more clear: it’s a lot better to be cool than to be smart.
When education itself isn’t held in high esteem, then neither are teachers or schools or educational systems.
It’s simply as hell and devilishly hard to do anything about.
This excuse is a crock. The reason parents, poor ones mostly, are apathetic is because they feel, with reason, defeated. Given half an opportunity, they aren’t appathetic at all. Which is why when a charter opens that might provide a way out they line up in droves trying to get their kids in.
this element has surfaced as the refined “cream-skimming” gambit charged by entrenched officials against a new charter: “by taking all the motivated parents, the charter is harming existing schools / getting unfairly high results / cheating somehow / building private schools with public dollars / fill in the blank.”
That attack dissipates into stony silence when countered with the gentle query “do you really mean to say that the charter is where the parents who know better choose to go?”
Before public school advocates get too excited about finding an excuse outside their control why they can’t succeed, they should figure out how to answer the following question.
If a public school can’t succeed, why should we spend any money on it?
It would be great if there were more highly-involved parents, but this shouldn’t become another excuse for public school failure.
How would a corporation feel about a sales manager who blamed his failure on “prospective customers who are too dumb to understand the true wonderfulness of our product?”
Why is it that I succeeded in school in spite of the fact that my parents were not eagerly and deeply involved? That’s because kids still respected adults, including teachers, and because traditional values still held sway, i.e., hard work, love of country, self-discipline, deferring pleasure, faith in God, modesty, respect for authority, etc. These virtues were woven into the national fabric and we unconsciously adhered to them. The sledgehammer of liberalism had not yet pulverized these virtues into dust, but today we see a lack of all of the above, and the chickens have come home to roost. The rise of narcissism, hedonism and an in-your-face culture that militates against the acquisition of knowledge and self-improvement infects both adults and children. Moral and cultural relativism means that nothing is better than anything else. Back then the elite still felt an emotional attachment to America. Today they hate it, and if you don’t believe me on that one, take a few university courses. Back then there was a sense of community and responsibility to that community. Massive immigration and multiculturalism have dealt a death-blow to the old tried-and-true model of the melting pot, now replaced by that of the salad bowl, and millions of our new immigrants do not value education very much. And then there is the impact of technology, the disintegration of the two-parent household, the lack of leadership in high places blah blah blah, and people are wringing their hands wondering why education is in trouble? Yes, lack of parent involvement is a factor, but it’s way way deeper and wider than just that.
Well-said, sir.
While it would be great to have more parents more actively involved in their children’s education and our schools in general, it is possible for us to do our jobs without them or inspite of parental dereliction of duty. Moreover, when parents DO get seriously involved in public education, it can and will make many educators and administrators–particularly–the ineffective ones—uncomfortable. BTW, just because a parent can’t or won’t respond to the school in traditional ways, does not necessarily mean a lack of concern.
This is a huge finging in many ways. In much of the country, parents of students follow the old Beach Boys’ motto of “Be True to your School.” Yet here we have them finding fault with the D.C. school system. Now if those that run those schools would just listen to the criticism and act upon the concerns of the parents….
TeachMoore:
Yeah, you can do your jobs but you can’t raise the kids.
There are many issues I could address regarding this topic, but I think the most relevant is:
The school system has in the last 30+ (probably closer to 50) years been asked to remedy/blamed for not remedying deep-seated problems within our society.