Education Rant: Missing Link

Fri Mar 7 18:38:57 UTC 2003

I have read the past educational rants with interest, and am glad to know 
that the arguements stay the same. However, IMHO, there is a big missing 
link to improving schools and that is parental involvement/accountability.

Of course children are going to do better in private schools. You pay for 
it. We all want our investments to do well, so we keep track of them. When I 
taught sixth grade, several of our students were from the private Catholic 
school (which only went to 8th grade). They were not miles ahead in 
knowledge, but they did know a few more basic skills and had better writing 
abilites then the public school students. Most of their parents called me 
once a week, wrote letters of encouragement, attended all conferences, and 
scheduled a conference themselves if something seemed questionable. Their 
children were exposed to music, sports, and travel. They were a dream to 
work with because they were so well-rounded for twelve year olds. The public 
school students were a mixed bag. Some were very similiar to the private 
school kids. Yet, many of my students from the public system had parents who 
would only call if I called them first, rarely attended conferences, and had 
kids who would be home alone after school instead of being involved on sport 
teams or music lessons. The Catholic school parents also cared enough for 
their children's emotional well-being by putting them in the public system 
before high school, so they could develop a peer group with the rest of the 
sixth graders who had converged together at middle school.

My point of why private school students do better: You put your money where 
your mouth is. That is, if education is something you truly value, and you 
are willing to pay for it, you are going to be more involved then someone 
who sees public education as getting a "freebie."

My first school was the school "on the hill":brand new, servicing a small 
bedroom community outside a large city, most parents were older, educated, 
and employed by large firms. This school ranked second for test scores in 
the district. My students arrived at school healthy, well fed, well dressed, 
and armed with life experiences of travel, sports, music, and books. 
Moreover, the parents held groups before and after school to teach the 
students foreign languages, leathermaking, space, etc. All of this was free. 
However, I still had a few students struggling with the first grade 
curriculum.  Some were "victims" of bad divorces, some were from families 
who were not involved with their children. The one I remember the most was a 
little boy who wore designer clothes, and whose claim to fame was a race car 
bed. He had ever toy imaginable, but no crayons. Mom was too busy to buy him 
any. Mom and Dad were too busy to read with him. I'm not joking. At a 
conference where I suggested they read to him more at home, Mom's comment 
was they didn't have enough time and was there someone I could recommend 
that they could pay to come in and read to him?

My point: Money does not buy everything, including education (i.e. 
vouchers). Parental involvement is what counts.

To reiterate the point above is the second school where I taught. Out in the 
middle of nowhere, this school serviced the children of dry land farmers - 
an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Ever try to farm dry land? You know, all 
living things need water to grow. So these kids were dirt poor (well, they 
were rich in dirt), but oh, so loved. I loved this school. It was the heart 
of the community. In fact, our school nurse/secretary was related to over 
90% of the student body. Every class had cousins, near cousins, and whatnot, 
as everybody was related to someone else. Siblings abounded as most of these 
families had upwards of 4 children. (Yes, a religion was predominant here) 
Every Friday night was pizza and roller skating in the gym. All the teachers 
would stay late, and even our spouses would drive out from town (30 minutes 
away) to join in the festivities. The kids came in with more real life 
experience then you could shake a stick at: life, death, rounding up cattle, 
attending pow-wows, raising stock of their own. We were third in the 
district for test scores, and if I could have the choice, this is the school 
I would want my child to attend.

My point: Poverty does not hamper education, if the parents are involved and 
empower their children to always do their best.

Last school, ugh. Let's just say that overall the parental motto was "we 
don't give a hoot, and you can't make me." Why these people ever had 
children was beyond me. They treated their dogs better. Out of a class of 
28, 26 were from broken homes, 5 had parents in jail, at least 1 parent 
showed up at a field trip high on drugs (I'm sure there were more drug 
users, but I don't have the evidence), no one volunteered, rarely were my 
calls returned, and often I had to deal with a drunk so and so shouting at 
me when I did call, 3 spoke no English, and their parents were illiterate in 
their native language, so they really didn't know that one either.  I had to 
hide a child in my office so her biological father with no visitation rights 
who showed up at school threating us all with a gun could not get her. I had 
a mother with a flower tattooed breast (it was falling out of her shirt) 
come teetering in one morning to call me a b**** in front of my classroom 
because I sent homework home that was too hard to do with her son. Will 
vouchers help these people? I think not. Would more school money help? 
Maybe. We could hire more conselors and special education teachers to help 
with these children who were never read to, and who have suffered more hurt 
from those who were supposed to love and care for them. I was on a first 
name basis with social services. They did not intervene until the last straw 
was broken. Like the time I had a child trying to strangle himself with his 
shoelace and bang his head violently on the floor. Like the time I spent 
most of the morning with a student moaning under her desk, crawling under 
there with her to listen to all the horrid things her mother's boyfriend had 
done, then to have her ripped away kicking and screaming as the service took 
her to who knows where. To have foster care kids in my classroom for maybe a 
week or two at a time before they were shuffled off to somewhere else.

But it was *my* fault as a teacher that these students were not learning or 
passing their tests. If this was a merit pay system, I would have been going 
backwards on the scale.  The kids who stayed the whole year, tried to do 
their best, and could believe that I loved them and cared for them enough 
that they could do it, did improve. Those who had been to 5 different 
schools by 2nd grade, and so jaded by the adults in their lives did not. And 
what's to become of them? Where are they going to get the help they need? If 
schools don't have the money, the resources, or the specially trained 
teachers and support staff for these kinds of students, then our society is 
crumbling faster than we can build it.

It's not always the schools, folks. We don't get our students until they are 
five or six years of age. Then, we only torture them for 6 hours at the 
most. Who's in charge for the rest of the 18 hours of the day?

Stacie

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