Long-time readers of my blogs would know I have written frequently on how school systems use the "first we blame the student, then we blame the parent" as a defense of the inadequacies of the system, or as an offense to intimidate the parent.
As a parent of a disabled kid, I know the story well. Thanks to the link from The Gradebook, here is an article written by Bill Mawwell that suggests some insight about all of those parents that use "broad brush attacks", are malcontents, and are thousands of "isolated incidents".
Many parents eager to help kids succeed - St. Petersburg Times
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Many parents eager to help kids succeed - St. Petersburg Times
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
16 comments:
Horse manure Richard....
We have parent conferences from 5 to 7:30 4 times a year. The parents who generally attend these are the parents of students who succeed. I guess we need to visit their homes, right? Beg them to come...
Involve parents in homework???? Please, we cant get kids to DO homework much less get parents involved in it. Horse manure...
Sure parents realize college is their kids key to a good job but as I point out to my students, one has to prepare in order to get into college. The parents of my poorly performing kids may tell researchers that the schools intimidate them but in my opinion that is just so much BS. The truth of their oun culpability probably intimidates them too dont ya think?
Your situation was different Richard. You ruffled feathers and forced them to do their jobs.
I suspect that the majority of parents who were interviewed for the Bill and Melinda Gates survey loved to be handed an excuse for their kids poor performance and God forbid they accept any responsibility.
I am sure their are exceptions but in my school we bend over backwards to get the parents of poor performing kids to meet with us.
Richard, those parents know where the blame belongs. Its primarily their fault for not adequately preparing their kids for school and for not instilling the proper work and behavior habits that will make it possible for success.
My God Richard, what would you have us do? Offer them a cash reward for caring enough to come talk to us? I am sure many teachers can be intimidating but most that I know would never be anything but polite with parents but I can assure you we will hold them accountable for some part of this process.
Thomas Vaughan
One more thing:
• Flexible parent-teacher conferences that consider the schedules of parents who work;
5-7:30 every 9 weeks
• Immediate notification when their children have academic problems, cut classes or skip school;
Every 4 weeks. They are notified when they skip schoom
• Homework hot lines to assist both children and parents;
We have this.
• More information about graduation requirements and college admissions;
We send home stuff all the time.
• Conferences in eighth or ninth grade to discuss what it will take for their children to succeed in high school;
My God....we do this ALL THE TIME.
• One faculty adviser who tracks their student all the way through high school as a mentor and a personal point of contact;
We have 1500 kids and 3 counselors. Is this really reasonable?
• Incorporate homework assignments that involve families in every course.
Like I said...kids dont do the freaking homework....get real. All these great suggestion are already being done. Whoever did this survey should get their head out of their #$$ and come to school.
Richard...this looks like scapegoating again.....Bill and Melinda Gates can pay for all the surveys they want but the suggestion that parents are "afraid" to come to school is horse crap. They may be afraid but it is not us they fear, its the truth of their poor parenting they fear.
Thanks again for the chance to speak to this issue.
Thomas, I find it interesting that there seems to be two different worlds within the public education system. The one you and many other perceive and the one that I and many others perceive.
Maybe that is why I always heard that phrase "isolated incicent".
There are not many parents who can "ruffled feathers and forced them to do their jobs" like I did. It takes a hell of a lot of resources, including time, fortitude, emotional strength, fortitude, persistence, money and, let's not forget fortitude.
It took me took six years to actually believe what had been happening to me before I started fighting. That was six years of wasted educational time. Not a blanket statement, as there were intermittant periods of good.
More than once, my wife and showed up for ESE conference nights, and were told we were the only ESE parents to show up. I showed up because I was tired of the crap. Maybe many parents don't show up because they are tired of the crap.
How many of these lazy parents trust the system?
I am pressed for time, but one more thing.
What is the "substance" in all of the checkmarks you have for the system?
In other words, if the system has all of this and it works, why are we talking?
Tom: If we just read this part of the article, do you disagree with it?:
"The report confirms what educators and scholars have known: Parents are the key to the educational success of their children.
Students with involved parents, no matter their family income or background, are more likely to earn higher test scores and grades, attend school and pass their classes, enroll in higher level classes, develop better social skills, graduate from high school, attend college and enjoy productive careers. Not surprisingly, students whose parents are not involved tend to have the opposite experiences.
One of the report's critical findings is that most of the nation's approximately 25-million parents with children in high schools want to be more involved but are frustrated when schools do not give them adequate information or opportunities to participate more effectively."
Richard I am in total agreement with that. I can predict within a a few weeks of the start of school which parents I will most likely meet at a parent conference.
I am most often left with the feeling that I am preaching to the choir when I meet parents. I send invitations to the parents of kids who are doing poorly and usually meet a tiny percentage of them. I do typically meet with the parents of the best performing kids.
The system does have all of the programs that should work but the parents of kids who need it dont avail themselves of them.
The simple and sad fact is that, for some reason, they just cant be bothered to take the time to do those things that would work.
I shouldn't use such pejorative characterizations but I am profoundly disappointed with parents like that. Its easy to blame schools for not being welcoming. There may be some truth to that but we are talking about THEIR kids. My parents would have come to school to monitor my progress even if the staff had been waiting with guns to shoot them. I will bet Richard would have done the same. You didn't need special programs, cookies and milk or and special incentives to look out for your kids did you?
I can think of no other reason than pure apathy. Parents don't come to school, don't challenge their kids to do their best and as a consequence train a whole new generation of apathetic parents-to-be to repeat this sad process. We could hire Jesus Christ to come teach our poorly performing kids and things would be no better.
We do the things that those smart people say we should do but they don't work. No one wants to tell the truth. We can make a parent do what they don't want to do any more than we can teach a kid who doesn't want to learn and is not given incentives at home to do do. I didn't want to learn as a kid but I sure didn't want to incur the wrath of my 5"4" red headed mother, so I did well in school. Simple.
I understand the part about deadbeat parents.
What do you make of this sentence? Remember, you and I are isolated incidents.
"One of the report's critical findings is that most of the nation's approximately 25-million parents with children in high schools want to be more involved but are frustrated when schools do not give them adequate information or opportunities to participate more effectively."
Well first of all I would be very interested in seeing how the survey that elicited this response was written and how the survey itself was executed.
Did they interview 25 million people? Was the selection process valid? I have done some work for political candidates in polling and I can make a survey prove any point I want. Did Bill and Melinda Gates have an agenda? Did they want this result?
If you ask a truly representative sample if they thought they got adequate opportunities to participate effectively I would be surprised if you didn't get a high number to answer in the negative. Too many words that sway the results. "Effectively, frustrated, adequate"...These are very bias inducing words.
Where did the term "frustrated" come from? I don't buy it. Sounds impressive but I am sure the Gates foundation was not unbiased. They are the ones who helped fund Springboard. I don't trust them.
Richard, there are plenty of problems with the school system and you have done a fine, fair and balanced job of pointing them out. I don't buy the conclusion that "most" of the 25 million parents "want to be involved but are not because the schools don't give them "adequate" information.
If my kid failed in high school I wold be very happy to let someone present me with an excuse. Good parents find a way to get through the confusing bureaucracy of the modern high school.
This is just my opinion and I don't claim to be unbiased.
Ok.
I am not unbiased either.
So how you do view these results? Do you really believe that 25million parents feel ininvolved because of something the schools did or didnt do?
I see less than 10% of my students parents every year and that has remained consistant for teh 15 years I have been teaching. There is a negative correlation between student test scores and parental involvement.
Let put the blame where it belongs. Nothing will change as long as we cling to the hope we can somehow blame the schools for our problems. Sure they can be better. Richard, you have done a fine job shining the light on this fact.
Too many parents send their kids to school and expect us to rear their children. We cant do it and more importantly, we shouldnt be expected to do it.
I take the "25 million" as a calculated statistic.
There are so many variables to this conversation, we must see the big picture while we discuss the individual pieces. And we must remember we are not talking about me and you.
What is your definition of "rearing" the children?
I was hired to teach Geography. I was trained and certified for that task.
Now they want me to teach character education, good manners and self control. I cant tell you how many times I have had a parent tell me that they cant control their own kid. Just today I had a kid walk out of the classroom w/o permission because I had the nerve to ask him not to laugh when I was correcting the behavior of another kid.
I am a teacher. I can try to set a good example but I need parental assistance. I can not do my job without it. Sometimes I feel like a babysitter. One kid can disrupt a classroom and prevent 20 others from getting the benefit of my instruction. Its the parents job to teach manners.
Administrators are too afraid of parents to help us. One complaint to the district office and administrators cave. They are more worried about career advancement than doing the right thing by teachers and students.
I don't trust "calculated statistics" from people like Bill and Melinda Gates. They have an agenda.
I don't trust "calculated statistics" either. Bill and Melinda Gates have as much an agenda as those who promote the public education system as something it isn't.
I will defend the parents who try to make the system work as much as you will defend the teachers who try to make the system work.
I am ridiculed when I challenge compulsory education while on the other hand I was treated badly when I tried to exercise my disabled son's "right" to FAPE.
I had two typical kids that made it through the system. One graduated from UF and one is now at Hofstra. Neither had any problems with the system, although I have a story about each of them that I am sure you would find interesting about the behavior of one teacher and one counselor.
If parents don't teach respect to their kids, who does?
I find your perspective fascinating. Please share your stories.
The school system sets a terrible example for children. We do the best we can.
Just today it was announced on our morning show that in the future kids would have to earn 2 quality points by the end of 2nd semester or be forced to enter our"grade enhancement" program. This means a few favored teachers will get a sweet gig pretending to teach in a few weeks what a kid missed in 18. The kid is guaranteed to get the required quality points no matter what they do and teachers will get some extra money in their pockets.
We all know that kids cant be retained. There simply isn't room in the classrooms if we held back all the kids who didn't learn. We figure out all kinds of imaginative and expensive ways to keep them on the escalator and move them forward whether they are ready or not.
Kids learn that they can slide and get by w/o attending to school work. All they have to do is show up for some "grade enhancement' classes and poof...all is well.
Its madness.
BTW...kids are desperate to be taught respect and manners. Believe it or not, they want approval from adults. They need to be taught. I am qualified to teach geography, paid to teach geography....are you really sure you want me teaching your kid character?
Do you even care?
I believe that the key to raising a responsible, respectful and life-long-learning person is dependent on a positive social-emotional relationship between the care-giving adult and the kid.
Are there any sucessful students that do not have people around them to build character? In fact, is it not true that a sound character base can overcome environmental deficits?
When the very thing that the system needs most from parents for the system to be successful is lacking, I find it interesting that the system puts limited resources into replacing it.
Ask any successful coach about how important relationship building is. Where are the social-emotional support systems for the teachers, students and parents? And by this I mean real professional supports, not just a place holder. A lot of money is spent by the system on many different entities. Does it get it's money worth?
I think I do care, otherwise I wouldn't be so angry about the system.
Richard
I didn't mean to imply that YOU didn't care.
My reference was a generic one. I recalled you were specific about you and I being "isolated" incidents.
Anyway...its off to work. I look forward to seeing my kids but I cant help but feel very sad sometimes.
Post a Comment