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Fix the Economy and Conservative Values Will Follow
April 25, 2012 | 163 comments
Feature
Meet the Suburban Parents
The other obstacle to public school reform.
Teachers unions are widely regarded as the most serious obstacle to the reform of public education, but history suggests a second critical, though less obvious, impediment. It was the muckraker Upton Sinclair who in 1919 conceded — and, as a socialist, with no great pleasure — that the success of any reform movement in the United States depends on the active support of the upper-middle class.
What Sinclair had learned from his own crusade to reform the meatpacking industry was that most social injustices are supported by powerful economic interests. And it is only the upper-middle class that has both economic independence and political clout to agitate for improvement, often shaping needed change to satisfy its own concerns.
A more recent illustration of Sinclair’s thesis was the early environmental movement in the 1960s, which drew membership disproportionately from professionals and college graduates. While the movement is rightly credited with saving the Hudson and Ohio Rivers and reviving the health of the Great Lakes, it also did much to enhance property values in affluent suburbs, university towns, and vacation communities inhabited by its supporters.
Unfortunately for the health of America’s public schools, the upper-middle class suburban parents who could do the most to advance education reform nationally by modeling it in their own communities have for decades been mute on the issue.
Suburban parents have always been ready to mob a school board meeting to agitate for improved athletic facilities, but never for teacher evaluations or merit pay. The PTA will mobilize families and schools to support the most controversial social movements, from gay rights and gun control to affirmative action and costly accommodations for the disabled, but not a peep about the pressing need to save urban children from failing schools.
In places like Marin County north of San Francisco, Fairfax County in Virginia, the affluent suburbs north of Chicago, and Fairfield County, Connecticut, even very modest reforms that could save taxpayers money while improving the quality of education-giving credit for courses taken at community college or online, for example-are either ignored or downplayed.
If pressed, the parent groups that dominate suburban politics will explain their contentment by claiming that the structure of public education is basically sound. They argue that only two ingredients, adequate tax revenue and parental oversight of the school administration, are needed to make the system work, and affluent suburbs are committed to providing both.
In reality, neither generous budgets or the parental dominance of boards of education contribute much to the academic quality of suburban schools. In March of 2005, the Yankee Institute for Public Policy looked at every school district in Connecticut, comparing per-pupil costs to student scores on state-administered mastery tests. It found that many affluent communities “spend much more than middle-class towns for the same educational outcomes.”
For most of the last 40 years, state courts have experimented with improving failing schools by ordering legislatures to fund poorer districts at affluent suburban levels, but to no avail. As the Supreme Court recently observed in reversing an Arizona school funding case (Horne v. Flores), the “weight of the research” disproves a causal relationship between spending and learning.
And as for the supposed academic benefit of parental oversight, the economic structure of suburban education — which gives families the ability to force neighbors without children in public school to share the tax tab — actually encourages board members to budget irresponsibly.
In states where suburban schools are funded primarily by property levies, for example, a family paying $10,000 in real estate taxes and sending three children to public schools with an average per pupil cost of $9,000 nets a yearly windfall from the community of $17,000 in educational services, a subsidy that is largely treated as what it is — other people’s money.
“The irony is that the huge real estate taxes…actually provide money that is counter-productive within the school system,” observes Margaret McIntyre, a former board of education member in the Illinois suburb of Wilmette. Parents are incented to grant educators excessive compensation and lax work rules-by far the largest cost drivers of local budgets — in return for a wide range of benefits with little relationship to the curriculum.
These include low-cost forms of day care, both before and after school, expensive and eclectic sports programs, holiday “socials,” low-cost summer camps run out of public school buildings, and a variety of school-day distractions for students, such as pottery and ballet lessons, cafeteria pasta bars, and media centers with state-of-the-art video equipment.
High schools in commuter enclaves outside of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, and other large cities have as many electives as some small colleges, offering credit for courses in jewelry making, computer animation, and the history of television.
On the other hand, when it comes to teaching the basics of reading, writing, and math, affluent suburban public schools are remarkably dysfunctional. For the small minority of highly motivated students, the system works well enough, but, according to Davis Guggenheim, the filmmaker behind the widely praised Waiting for “Superman” documentary, up to 75 percent of graduates need to take at least one remedial course in college.
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Alan Brooks| 6.30.11 @ 7:14AM
You might be correct, but yesterday a commenter expressed the emblem of a more subtle factor: he wrote how if education were an auto business-- or The auto industry-- it would go bankrupt.
That is exactly what is wrong with you, you possess a Ross Perot mentality, you think education can be run as a corporation; with a superintendent as a CEO, say; a principal as a head retail sales guy; and the students as cars on the lot.
America is very productive, but you can't treat children as commodities, education as an industry-- and point to graphs like Perot on TV.
Alan Brooks| 6.30.11 @ 7:56AM
Appleby's comment below is unusually good.
But the only real privitization will be homeschooling-- that is the real issue. I do not think Americans can work together for something as delicate as educational reform. Pork bellies, yes, Big Macs, yes. Education... nyet!
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 8:00AM
Alan buddy, that is exactly what we are now, nothing more than Commodities to be bought and sold to whomever will work the cheapest.
In the not too distant future, the American workforce will to a major degree turn into Contract Workers. In my travels around the world, I struck up conversations with many people who were in transit from their home country and families for a period of one year to work overseas.
They work for a wage and a wage only. No vacation, no health care, no benefits of any kind. Lets say a woman gets pregnant during her contractual obligation. By not being able to fulfill her obligations she is penalized by the contracting agency.
I fear brother we haven't seen anything yet.
Alan Brooks| 6.30.11 @ 8:06AM
Well, before going off on the tangent of globalization, let's stick right now with education in America- or the lack thereof. Education has been in its present state for 3-4 decades, are you are saying students have been commodities for all this time? if so then privatization may be pie in the sky-- libertopianism.
So back to the drawing board.
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 8:27AM
Yep. I have read, and maybe not as much as I should have, that during the 1800s Corporations realized and influenced the educational process to where schools taught kids just enough to make them good employees.
This is just my opinion of course. I sincerely feel that education was of better quality prior to the Industrial Revolution.
JP| 6.30.11 @ 8:51AM
Actually, the model we use orginated in Prussia. The top-down, centralized approach to education was concocted by Fredrich the Great's grandfather. Starting in the late 19th Century, many Progressives fell in love with it (Dewey was one of them). Over the decades we put our own imprimatuer on the Prussian System. But at its core, it was an imported model. Echt Deustch replaced Made in America beginning sometime in the 1920s as far as education goes.
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 10:40AM
Thanks, more goodies to learn.
Albert| 6.30.11 @ 7:30PM
"...and the students as cars on the lot." This analysis of the auto industry analogy is incorrect. Students in such a model are most definitely NOT the comodity for sale. What would be sold in such a model is the service of education. Students (and their parents) are the customers. The goal is to give the customers a better product at a fair price. Government schools give a vastly inferior product at an inflated price (paid through taxes.) The industry model school is answerable to the customers. The government model, as we have seen for many decades now, is not.
Appleby| 6.30.11 @ 7:23AM
The truth is that the vast majority of Americans despise educated people and have always mocked and jeered at *eggheads*, *doubledomes*, *geeks* and *nerds*; the last thing they want in their family is an honour student. They want their kids to have the appearance of being educated (and if that means the parents do their homework and projects, or the kids cheat, so what); and they unite to shriek against homework that interferes with *family time* by which they mean time to play video games, update their facebook pages and Tweet.
And of course the main reason suburban parents dont care what happens in urban schools is that they worked very hard to get their families OUT of those schools, and they think other people should do the same. That, after all, is the American Way.
As for their forcing single and childless people to subsidize their children, well, that is socialism. At least here in Kanukistan, they promise us that their children will be sold into wage slavery for our benefit when we are old -- right now *free* medical care accounts for 46% of Ontarios budget, and the average age in Ontario is 40. Just wait until its 60 and see if the kids enjoy their chains.
John Dewey| 6.30.11 @ 7:48AM
The dirty secret to educational success in the 21st century is tied to how much parents support the education of their children by ensuring homework is completed, enforcing bed times, limiting television and video games etc. Good parents do this (and more) AND move to suburban school districts populated with like minded parents. They don't see the crisis in under performing schools because they choose to avoid them. While they know it exists, it exists elsewhere and is not an immediate issue for them. Good parents do overcome poor schools, Asian immigrants are a great example of this.
Bruno Behrend | 7.18.11 @ 7:32PM
The dirty secret is the number of such parents are much lower than you think, and dropping. Next, such parenting doesn't make up for the collapsing standards and content that even the rich districts suffer from.
Le Cracquere| 6.30.11 @ 11:11AM
Nailed it. By and large, American education has ZERO friends--the liberals largely object to traditional notions of knowledge, and the conservatives largely object to non-remunerative knowledge. But hey, at least the football team's funding is secure.
Patrick| 6.30.11 @ 7:28AM
The Education Monopoly has more marketing gurus than any car company, anywhere, or rather everywhere. Even so, every tax increase is said to be "for the kids", yet they get less education every time.
Privatize every school, let the parents decide, and let the school boards busy themselves with making sure that the schools are teaching the "Three R's" and at least a skill, maybe even university prep, for what university is meant to be, not a stupid paper saying, "Yes, I kissed X number of butts to get this paper."
RT| 6.30.11 @ 8:22AM
Alan, your analogy is incorrect: children aren't commodities; they are consumers. The "product" is an education and the providers can and should be treated like a business.
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 8:23AM
My father as tough as nails as he was, always asked me what I was doing in school. Despite working me like a dog, in the family business, he afforded me the time to read.
Even when we took breaks, or were waiting for whatever he would tell me to start reading, this of course was at a very, young age, but over time my own desire to read overcame the need to be told to do so.
By reading, a human being develops their own ideas, conceptions, analysis, own opinions of what they were reading or learning.
Todays children unfortunately are being raised by their Sony Play Stations or Nintendo's. This is of course a modern day pacifier for from when the children grow old enough to spit out the rubber one, and the parents give them the electronic one to keep the kids quiet and passive.
I had a conversation with a young man one day, and the subject came up about how I though video games are just entertainment and not a learning tool.
He became quite indignant and try to convince me that playing a video game taught me many things, like thinking skills, stratagems, etcetera.
I burst his bubble by telling him, your playing a device that was developed by someone else's ideas, not your own. Your playing a device with software that has designed stratagem and outcome. "The software desinger is playing you, and you not him.
When I have discussion with these poor kids, they stand there in a stunned silence, like when a game locks up and is not responding.
Bob Grant| 6.30.11 @ 9:17AM
Thank you for articulating something I've hand in mind for quite sometime. When playing a video game, the player enters the world of the game developer. At that point, it's a Pavlovian exercise.
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 11:58AM
Not bad for a 53 year old guy huh?
Many of these kids, either don't care or actually think that they are the ones behind the games mojo. Sometimes I usually get the stomped on bull frog look when I acutally explain to them that they are playing a predetermined outcome.
I at times play these games with the grandkids, just for the entertainment value, tire easily of it, and give it back to the grandkids.
Franco| 6.30.11 @ 10:47AM
Amen.
Bumr50| 6.30.11 @ 8:34AM
Of course instructors and professors would be careful not to explore the computer as a learning tool to it's fullest capacity.
It would kill jobs in both high schools and universities.
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 8:44AM
Hmm, ya got a point there. Never really looked at it that way.
John Navratil| 6.30.11 @ 9:11AM
Bumr50,
I've been programming computers since the days of punch cards and can say that there are very clever programs which can facilitate learning a subject. However, the computer is a tool not a tutor. With very limited exceptions in very narrow fields, a computer can only tell you where you err, not why. An efficient replacement for flash cards or practice problems? Yes! A substitute for teaching? No!
Sandra| 6.30.11 @ 9:41AM
Amen! A computer program does not know that you are unsure or frustrated because the "canned" explanation is not sufficient for you to comprehend the concept.
A flesh & blood teacher standing in the room with you, may give you the same "canned" explanation, but is capable of see that you "did not get it" and COULD assist you in methods to understand and grasp the concepts. Yet, in many places, that teacher/instructor, is barely more literate in the subject than the student they are supposed to be teaching. They barely "get" the concepts that they are teaching students. No wonder we have problems in some subjects!
In Upper-middle class suburbs, parents can recognize that their children are not getting something, and arrange for an alternate delivery method (tutors, private schooling, "enrichment" opportunities") . Middle and even Lower-middle class recognize that education is a means to an end and will work to their ability to assist their children, but they lack the funds for private (or for profit) assistance, and have too much income for programs that target the "underclass" (the working poor and the "welfare dynasties").
Those that are in urban schools have both "pilot programs" AND the crime culture (that prevents having a rich academic culture in the classrooms).
(Computer) Games (and simulations) TAKE AWAY skills, not develop them in kids. ONCE you know or grasp a concept, a game CAN help to re-enforce it, through repetition and variances, but you first have to LEARN them!
I did adult education and skills training for decades; no amount of "simulations" with a computer ever "instructed" someone that did not first possess the basic skills. They also, never would progress from basic or minimal competency on their own without ACTUAL experience in DOING the actual task.
Whom do you want landing your airliner, the person with 500 hours of actual flying or the person with 100 hours of flying and over 1000 on a simulator?
John Navratil| 6.30.11 @ 10:47AM
Sandra,
I'm picking a nit here because your post is absolutely on point. Your example of aircraft simulator is one where the simulator is the better teaching environment (an instructor is present for precisely the reasons you point out). With the new aircraft, the first time a pilot is actually at the controls is with paying passengers. Before you panic, the captain does have actual flight experience in the aircraft.
I am not a professional pilot but do have an hour of 737 time in the simulator and duly logged as dual-instruction received in my logbook. During the 1/2 hour I was at the controls, I had three takeoffs: one normal, one with an engine fire, and one with a blown tire (the other 1/2 hour was "right seat"). The word from the instructor was "If you can fly the simulator, you can fly the real thing."
It's is an interesting pedagogic point that my "flights" were from the San Francisco airport. Even though you can see traffic on the freeways in the simulator, the Golden Gate bridge is missing - for the obvious reason.
Sandra| 6.30.11 @ 12:54PM
John, no problem. But even as simulators get 'better" there is still something to be said about "competence!"
How does one master mathematics? How does one go from basic arithmetic operations, to algebra, or geometry to calculus and statistics? BY DOING THEM, over and over and using all those rules about operations. If a kid cannot master the basic "times tables," slightly more advanced topics like ratios, fractions, lowest and highest common denominators and numerators will be VERY DIFFICULT indeed.
There are times where having a calculator will not help. Knowledge IS POWER
Bruno Behrend | 7.18.11 @ 7:36PM
Sandra,
Your points would be valid, except they don't take into account the sophistication of software programs and the ability to teachers to supplement in between the time on the computer.
Look into the explosive strides being made with what they call "blended learning." Technology can obviate the need for the army to teachers and administrators.
Tina B| 6.30.11 @ 8:46AM
"how much parents support the education of their children by ensuring homework is completed, enforcing bed times, limiting television and video games etc."
John Dewey you are correct. Instead, this past year I taught students who did no homework, had TVs or monitors and game stations in their rooms with access 24/7, great sneakers in several color combos, gelled-styled-highlighted- hairstyles that changed regularly, phones that were (until recently) better than mine, and all this is in 6th grade!
Just give me a student with one of the following: caring parents willing to work with me and their child to learn math skills and to learn how to think, a clue about what it will take to make it in their future world and a willingness to do the hard work to get there, manners and the ablility to control him/herself, a few skills and a willingness to learn more, any of the above or combination of several. I can do wonders.
Then I need an admin that will get out of my way, now that I am a proven quantity (my students previous state test scores and my former students success in the real world along with their personal reflections on my math teaching strengths) and let me teach my students MATH!
I really feel I can't fight the system any longer and am getting out. My spirit could go on doing this, my flesh is weak. School discipline is getting more lax, positive behavior games are growing in method and madness (thank you so much for handing me that cell phone you just picked up, instead of stealing it-let me give you a reward for doing the right thing). And I see the learning being watered down in the name of "differentiated instruction."
In the year 2009-2010 one of my teammates crunched some numbers. My students were either being tested, or taught by a sub while I was being "trained" (in differentiating and new planning methods) for 25% of their school days with me. They have a 180 day school year.
Combine this with the number of days they stay home with parental permission, and you don't get a lot of instruction time to cover a years worth of mathematics or algebra. More is the pity.
I was recently the parent/teacher/psychologist to 120 6th graders who happened to make up our lowest quartile of state test scores in math. Many come from illiterate, disfunctional, transient, even no parent families, and who have no books in their home. Many had the internet but no one used it to read or learn. We gave all the students the textbook websites and passwords to the text online, it had tutorials and games for learning math. Virtually no one used it.
I use high level techno in class and use it with fluence. They loved coming to my class, they just didn't want to do the hardwork outside of my class to develop math as skill. I feel I failed them, but I know I didn't. They are all better off for having had me in their math lives for a year. I know this.
But I am "rode hard and put up wet," as my prof the late Dr. Doug Brumbaugh used to say. And my grandkids need me around. So as far as Public Ed goes, I 'm outa here.
Handy| 6.30.11 @ 10:48PM
There is a bit of frustration on your part.
Try teaching algebra as a mystery novel.
If that fails, get them to watch "Mythbusters".
JP| 6.30.11 @ 8:47AM
Education may not be a business, but there are limits to how much we can afford to spend. Of course, education is an industry. If one counts the money each state spends on education, the numbers are quite baffling. We spend on k-12 education alone close to $400 billion. Add in another $300-400 billion for higher education, and the taxpayer foots a bill that is approaching a trillion dollars. Outside of MBAs and lawyers, we must still import engineers, software devlopers, doctors, and other specialists (or we go to them overseas). Keeping that in mind, I wonder how long it will be before the entire edifice implodes financially. Even in my own diocese, over half the budget for the parishes goes to funding education.
To make matters worse, 25% of our population is now between 46 and 64. Add in the older elderly and the old-age demographic expands to over 1/3 of our population (close to 40% of our population is over 40 years old). Simply put, there are not enough young people to keep this extravagent fantasy going much longer. Some states like Texas who currently enjoy large influxes of younger high earner families may put off the day of decision for awhile. But most states cannot. It is now a common political event to watch states struggle to keep education funding at pre-recession levels. Good luck. Most states here in the Rust Belt gave up 2 years ago. The knife has been unsheathed.
Education has been a racket for decades. The bloat began sometime in the 1950s when many states began consolidating educational spending and standards and rolled them up into thier state capitals. Local control and local funding was taken away. Most school districts now must follow state mandates -local school boards are just eye candy. The real power lies in the 50 state capitals and the Beltway. And it is there where the "interests" make thier power felt.
The entire edifice is rotten to the core. We spend $400 billion a year on state supervised daycare. And the parents love it because it gets the kids out of thier hair for 8 hours a day.
Hillel| 6.30.11 @ 8:53AM
Without denying that Teachers and schools could stand improvement, the biggest problem is the toxicity of our culture. To cite one instance. Some young teens were chased away from the property upon which they'd trespassed. In fleeing one left her cell-phone. It revealed photos of the girl and her cohorts in shocking and obscene poses. Besides the Police the Mother was informed.She expressed indifference.
How can the schools educate when there's no support for ANY STANDARDS?
Dan Hirsch| 6.30.11 @ 8:57AM
A situation recently exposed in Wisconsin: teachers' unions take great pains to have their own members elected to school boards. Thus labor representatives become part of negotiating teams for management. Stop telling us about how it's all the parents fault, when the true objective of the teachers' unions is their own enrichment and nothing else, certainly not the enrichment or enhancement of the students' minds.
To fix the problem, the only answer is to get teachers and so-called education professionals booted out of school boards. This can only happen locally. It isn't easy, but it's the only way.
PS I am reminded of an anecdote my son told me about his seventh grade math teacher (in one of those fancy North shore Chicago suburban schools.) It seems that the teacher did not like questions from students and belittled any student who asked questions in class. I'm wondering if this teacher's illuminating and elucidating style rendered any student's question superfluous. Somehow, I doubt it.
MikeBee| 6.30.11 @ 9:13AM
Inner-city parents don't care whether their children learn at all or not; the government will give them money when they grow up, just as they do their parents, now. So, inner-city teachers don't see much of the parents.
No so in the suburbs. In the suburbs, it's all about appearance. The parents ask the teachers what degrees they carry. If their kid's teacher has a B.A., and the other first grade teacher has an M.A., they want their kid in the M.A. teacher's class. Forget the fact that the teacher with the B.A. can teach circles around the teacher with the M.A. The suburban parents simply think that the M.A. is better.
Computers are another example. To date, a computer has not taught a single child to read, write, or do math. It can assist, but children need teachers to show them how to read and write. Inner-city schools are lacking in computers and technology. Suburban schools, however, are loaded with technology.
So, the suburban school districts end up spending much more per child on all of this appearance stuff, hiring teachers with M.A.s and Doctorates, and buying all the latest technology, while usually giving a mediocre education. Inner-city school districts spend less per child on learning stuff and bells and whistles, and offer a mediocre education, too.
As Appleby hints at above, suburban parents use private schools as much as possible for their children. They really don't care about the public schools. Secretly, they hope the public schools continue as they are, so that their own privately-educated child will rise above the rest.
loulou| 6.30.11 @ 10:30AM
Education degrees are meaningless.
I know an "educator" who joked that she bought her MA.
The Big E| 6.30.11 @ 9:26AM
Secondary education died when the purpose of secondary education shifted from preparing young people to live independently in society to preparing them for four more years of education. All students should graduate High School with the ability to get and hold a job, maintain a household, and exercise their civic duties in a responsible manner. Those are the basic skills at the foundation of any free society. They are not being taught, therefore our schools are failing because their graduates lack the basic tools necessary for everyday success.
MikeBee| 6.30.11 @ 10:51AM
TBE,
You've hit the nail on the head! For years, I thought that my great uncle, who had completed sixth grade, and my mother, who completed high school in a later generation, were just not as smart as people in my time who completed high school and went on to college. I learned later, however, after reading some of the tests they had to pass in order to complete sixth grade (in my great-uncle's time), that they weren't slouches at all. In fact, there was a lot of stuff they knew that I didn't. Why is this?
My theory: in my great-uncle's time, people didn't live very long, many dying in their 50s and 60s. So, education was completed early, giving folks at that time everything they needed to survive this cruel and nasty world by the time they completed grade school. In my mother's time, people were now living into their 60s and 70s, so her generation completed everything they needed to know by the end of high school, with no need for college. Now, people are living into their 80s and 90s, and people are completing college. The generation after mine completed Master degrees to learn what I did with a Bachelor degree.
We could really teach children all they need to know by the end of eighth grade. Jaime Escalante proved this, by showing that inner-city children could do Calculus at a young age. Doing so would save a whole LOT of money we presently spend on educating children, but would also put a whole lot of people out of work in higher education. Maybe this is the answer to our problems with education?
The Big E| 6.30.11 @ 12:51PM
I don't know why basic living skills were removed from the public school curriculum, but I suspect that it was a combination of factors driven by the standard leftists' disdain for the menial.
The public education system in this country has unquestionably been in the thrall of the left for many years, and they view education as an end in and of itself - ergo - why waste time teaching menial tasks like learning how to operate in a work environment, or how to manage your household, or how to understand and exercise civic rights and responsibilities?
I know several years ago I got fed up with being unable to find employees who were capable of doing their jobs, so I let them all go and have been a one-man operation ever since. Fortunately, in my profession (I'm a criminal defense attorney), that is a possible. Today, I hear other lawyers complain about how they can't even find staff who understand that if the office opens for business at 8:00 a.m., that means you're at your desk with your terminal on ready to begin work at 8:00, not that you come straggling in at 10 after and go straight to the coffee pot to address your hangover. I have one friend who says the only time his staff ever works forty hours is on vacation - they get a week of paid vacation, and that will be the only forty hour week they put in all year.
I practice in a college town, and a substantial percentage of my clients are college students. Most of them are future teachers, since the university here turns out a very high percentage of the teachers in this State. For the most part, they are utterly clueless about how to get along in society. Yet they graduate from college, pat themselves on the back for getting a degree which says, primarily, that they made it through four years without getting incarcerated for a lengthy period of time, and then go on to "teach" others. Teach them what? How to goof off and put off growing up? Is that what higher education has come to? And yet, THIS is the goal we all want our children to achieve?
Bull. My daughter is a bright child. She makes excellent grades in a public school, and learns thanks to myself and her mother pushing her at home and pushing her teachers in school. I have learned that a lot of teachers are inherently lazy, and will teach nothing until a parent hovers over them and MAKES them do their job. Otherwise, they seem to think they're on a permanent vacation. I hope my daughter goes on to college and furthers her education, BUT - I would rather her graduate only from high school and go straight into the workforce than go on to college simply to put off growing up for another four years. She'll be a far better and more productive person in the long run if she goes to work straightaway than if she spends four more years goofing off and collecting meaningless grades in meaningless classes toward a degree that serves no purpose beyond decorating a wall.
Sandra| 6.30.11 @ 12:56PM
BINGO!
Mike| 6.30.11 @ 9:27AM
I was surprised to see Upton Sinclair cited without disdain and the successful clean up of the Hudson River and the Great Lake commented on without some snarky anti-EPA comment.
I wasn't surprised by the analysis that portrays people with no children who, of their own free will and volition, choose to live in a particular community with a good school system as victims of grand theft.
But, damn those upper middle class parents whose family values (taking care of my kid the way I see fit, and by the way, I don't tell you how to educate your kid so don't tell me how to educate mine) conflict
with your radical right wing utopian reforms. Ever
notice how many kids from the suburban school systems you cite attend top flight universities and, then, go to Wall Street to financially engineer bubbles?
dc| 6.30.11 @ 9:56AM
To which of the "radical right wing utopian reforms" mentioned in the article, or by the above commenters, do you object, and why?
A very optimistic reading of your post would be "you educate your kids your way, I'll do the same for mine, leave me alone." But you don't really believe that, do you? What you believe, and what you want, is for the government to tax the living shit out of "rich" people to subsidize the type of statist, character and Western-culture-free, union-worshipping horsedung pseudo-education that is delivered by union stooges in all public school districts, rich or poor. Nobody on Wall Street could pull heists of billions without overt government sanction and support. As the mobs and unions know, the best rackets are government-sponsored, or created by government regulations. And those, naturally, you want to increase rather than decrease, because they'll prevent any private innovation, prevent parents from actually choosing how their children are educated (why, for example, is there a Home School Legal Defense Fund? Because it is needed to combat SWAT-minded educrats who forcibly attempt to jail parents and remove children to foster care, if they aren't being stuffed into government schools).
So stop pretending you have any interest in educational freedom. You don't.
Thank God for the 2nd Amendment. Every time I read a post from an ass like you, I make an extra contribution to the NRA, and buy more ammunition.
Mike| 6.30.11 @ 3:20PM
Wayne La Pierre is living high off the ole hog thanks to suckers like you - keep sending in the money.
Don't forget to keep the safety on; you might shoot yourself in the foot in an apoplectic rage.
dc| 6.30.11 @ 5:24PM
Wouldn't you just love to tell me to whom I can contribute money? After all, my money is the government's property, as are my children, right?
It will be fun to give my kids a live dissection lesson on people like you when you come slithering around trying to perform as Il Duce Nero's Bolivarian Circles. And don't worry, I know how to shoot to wound.
Purple Lips| 6.30.11 @ 10:11AM
Do a wiki search on people like Franklin Raines, Jim Johnson, Robert Rubin, Angelo Mizilo, Barney Frank, and Christopher Dood. Look at thier bios. These are the people who engineered the largest bubble in history. Look at thier CVs. BTW, they are all Democrats. Most enjoyed elite education.
Just Joe| 6.30.11 @ 11:55AM
"Elite educations." Now there's an oxymoron for you.....
Petronius| 6.30.11 @ 9:33AM
The commentary is all over the lot. let's get back to the subject: suburbanites interests of what their kids are being taught. I've rarely seen any. We're talking suburbanites, right? What were their interests when they were in school? Popularity and sports. They did the class work to get a grade and moved on. What they are not aware of is the instruction they got was practical and of some use, and that their offspring are being taught nothing but leftist social attitudes behind their backs. The few parents that do take issue with teachers get threatened with reprisals against their children and family services invading their homes over alleged abuse. The only thing stopping the left from indoctrinating the entire student body of this nation is the good old forbidden fruit syndrome. The late Barry Goldwater said these words in a senate debate during the first attempt to prohibit possession of hand guns. "When you tell an American he can't have something, you can bet your last dollar he'll find a way to get it." Most kids are smart enough to find out what their teachers as well as their parents do not want them to know. Self serving institutions are better at generating opposition than we give them credit for. But if we are going to beat the left, parents must sit down with their kids at the kitchen table and disabuse them of the crap they are force fed in the classrooms.
David| 6.30.11 @ 10:17AM
"They [today's parents] did the class work to get a grade and moved on."
I think this is the only time grades have been mentioned here.
Grades were long ago used to measure the student's performance. Now, they are the de facto measure of teacher performance. Consequently, low grades are teacher suicide, and students "get a grade" and "move on" without doing classwork, or God forbid, homework. Often without even going to class. Administrators, parents, and students love it.
JShizzle| 6.30.11 @ 11:23AM
"We're talking suburbanites, right? What were their interests when they were in school? Popularity and sports."
Those sentences don't seem to fit the rest of your post. I agree with the rest of your post, but your decision to paint with such a broad brush is out of line...and wrong, frankly. Popularity and sports were the only interests? Really? That's a pretty ignorant comment that ruins an otherwise pretty good argument.
Petronius| 6.30.11 @ 2:34PM
I confess a certain iron clad cynicism, but during my working life the primary channel to opportunity and promotion was and still is good old American know who. The diploma and the degree no longer have the value of half a century ago in any case except for hard sciences. Today they carry the cachet of mere conformity and little else. It is a ticket of admission because it is a certificate of submission. I'm obstinate due to experience. The yes men all joined the frat. Include me out.
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 10:13AM
Nah, Miss Tina B., you didn't realize at the time, but you reached me, as you reached hundreds, or thousands of minds.
By your post you appear to be one of the educators that actually gives a damn about the student and his or her level of education. Hence my above comment. I was very fortunate to have teachers (Old School) that stimulated the lump of muscle upon my shoulders.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't get my educational act together as a student until my latter years in high school. "Yes, Mr. Morrel you were right, I was acting like a fool."
But nevertheless I did realize that I needed education, and I acutally enjoyed it. And I credit that generation of teachers.
Your analysis is correct at the parenting level, to be the drivers of their children's education. But I am afforded the ability to interact with retired and active high school teachers at our local pool and almost every afternoon we solve the worlds problems all in about an hour.
It is just wonderful conversation, I wish you could be there.
One high school history teacher who is also a retired US Marine Officer is frustrated by the faculty/administrators, and North Carolina's view in how this educational deficit can be repaired.
At the high school level, the Principal is more of a stumbling block that a problem solver due to one aspect of having financial incentives from the State of North Carolina to fluff the number of students graduating.
The retired echoes the words of many teachers, "This Kid did absolutely nothing all year, he or she needs to fail."
So the principal of this particular high school gives the teacher two options, fluff the grades to graduate the student or the Principal who has the final say overrides the teachers report card of the students failure to complete the state required curriculum.
So now we have a ignorant happy graduating student and parent because they want junior out of their hair, and a demoralized teacher who develops the attitude, what the hell am I in the classroom for.
Many hard charging teachers at least in this one high school quit just after a couple of years because of the abysmal support they receive from the administration.
If a person was to confront the local school boards they would be quick to whip out their fluffed statistical data, a proclaim, "Yes We Did."
More money corrupts and doesn't teach a damn thing. Well....it does teach one thing I suppose, more corruption at the administrators and school board's level.
Barry Garelick | 6.30.11 @ 10:53AM
Thank you for the reference to my analysis of the Singapore Math program. The article was published in Education Next, not EdNews.org, and is found at http://educationnext.org/miracle-math/. The program was piloted at four schools in only one school district, the Montgomery County Public School district.
2Anglico| 6.30.11 @ 11:02AM
Let's face facts; people act in their own self interest. The only way "suburbanites" will do anything to change the government education system is if they come to the realization that it is a failed system. For now, they remain hoodwinked into thinking "our schools are pretty good". They have no clue as to how the left wing teachers are trying to "socialize" their kids from day 1.
EXAMPLE: Parents are given a "supply" list before the start of the school year. Most kids bring in the supplies, some do not. Now, do you think the teacher lets the kids with no supplies be humiliated? No, every kid must give up their supplies which are put in a "common" storage area for future use! SOCIALISM in 1st grade!!!!
Old Soldier | 6.30.11 @ 11:10AM
I'm wondering if any of the above commenters live in the suburbs and have kids.
We live in a middle class NJ suburb. Our town has a very good K through 8th grade school – that’s why we live there! Five years ago we went house shopping because we needed more space for the growing family. We targeted towns with the best school systems and skipped the crummy ones. We talked to parents at church who lived in the various towns and quite a few friends and neighbors who taught in the different districts before making that choice. We aren’t the only ones – suburban parents shop school districts. Our new neighbors just moved in specifically for the schools.
Once 8th grade is done for our kids, they get shipped off to a shabby region high school. No thanks, that is when we start paying for private / parochial school.
Bruno Behrend | 7.18.11 @ 7:47PM
Even the best public school in the nation is a) more expensive than it should be, and b) not as good as it could be.
You don't need counselors, social workers, or psychologists, and those services should be contracted out in any event.
Check out your superintendent's contract and how it was rubber stamped by a compliant or purchased school board. Tell me how a superintendent or a school district bureaucracy is even necessary to educate your kid.
Tell me that if we gave you $11,000 ( per child per year national average), for each of your kids, you couldn't find a good school for them.
The extent that you react negatively to this post/comment is the extent to which you are blind to the waste and greed of this system.
It is indefensible, and suburbanites need to end their allegiance to it. The article is 100% and 10 years too late. Suburbanites are hurting their own kids, and literally killing kids in the inner-city, as they foolishly support the waste and greed of the district system.
Old Soldier| 6.30.11 @ 11:21AM
My kids do well in school because we make them. No games or TV until all homework is done and projects are on schedule.
My wife I trust the 8th grader - that would change if her grades fell. The 4th grader gets a full homework check from one of us every night - and often there is a lot of re-work involved. His grades and his level of math and reading reflect our standards, not the school's or his (although hopefully he is picking up good work habits).
Melvin| 6.30.11 @ 12:01PM
The one main very big stumbling block is, many of these, "New Age" parents refuse to teach their kids failure, and that failure is just part of life, and how we as humans overcome failure.
Millions of kids do have not experienced failure, or death, such as a loved one etcetera. The parents sugar coat it so damn much the kid doesn't get the life experience.
They tend to meander through life thinking that Mom and Dad are going to run interference for them their entire lives.
Old Soldier| 6.30.11 @ 1:19PM
I prefer not to see my kids fail at academics - that's why they play sports.
I've cringed on the sidelines while my kid serves up homeruns, misses tackles on the goal line, etc... I don't yell or get upset, I also don't let them make excuses, just accept that they got beat.
The Big E| 6.30.11 @ 2:19PM
Amen. When I think over my life experience, it's hard for me to think of anything I learned as a result of succeeding at something. My failures, on the other hand, have been my best and most efficient teachers.
Seek| 6.30.11 @ 12:02PM
George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Jack Kemp, each a Republican, were warriors for expanding homewonership opportunities for blacks and Hispanics who could not afford what they were buying. The real estate bubble and subsequent bursting was a two-party affair.
Charles R. Williams| 7.2.11 @ 2:12PM
Seek, you have half a point. Some Republicans, notably the otherwise undistinguished John McCain, did try to reign in Fannie Mae and they were thwarted by the threat of a Democrat filibuster. The Democrats have always been the party of crony capitalism as evidenced by the political affiliations of Wall Street bankers. The Republican record is, as you point out, uneven.
Tina B| 6.30.11 @ 12:14PM
I resonate Melvin, and thanks, Melvin. God bless.
Mort| 6.30.11 @ 12:19PM
Public Education has a multitude of causes for the poor results and the lack of bang for the buck. They range from curriculum to teachers to school board to parents.
It is not difficult to notice that students from private schools such as Catholic schools out perform public school students using less money. Money has never been the answer nor is a lot of money needed. Homeschooled students, when properly educated, are more advanced than those of public and this is at a fraction of the cost. Throwing money without any thought is like investing with some guy off the street. The money is thrown at bloated teacher salaries, overpaid administrators and new equipment that the old could do just as well. Even frivolous purchases such as bicycles for kids or even a laptop for every student should be stopped.
When you stop the money bleeding, you begin to see holes in education. There are countless incidents of poor teachers. It truly does not take a degree to teach history or even math. Sorry, but little is required. Every day there are parents teaching their children that surpass the public school child.
Next are your parents. No matter how excellent of a teacher your child has, if you have no interest in your child's education then the child fails. When a parent does not value education the child will not value it. How can you teach someone that is not interested?
School adiministrators are like CEOs, overpaid and do really little. Yes, there is a use for them but not as much as one would think. This goes more towards money.
School boards are indeed too busy to do their job properly. Often, they are misinformed or are pushing an agenda. This was a nice idea fifty years ago but these days people have little time for it.
Another area of concern in the public school is the switching of teaching styles. We can take a look at mathematics and the recent changes that came from Chicago Univ., I believe. It is hampering the education of students but it goes on.
These are just a few of the problems that plague public schools. What these schools truly are, are a representation of our government. They love to eat our money while we blindly accept it and they push forth their own educational agenda oblivious to what really is needed. When you break down the teacher union monopoly and other such problems then you can improve the educational system. The reality is a homeschooled child or a privately schooled child with always outperform the public school child.
Denise| 7.1.11 @ 12:41PM
Finally, finally, someone has spoken about teaching styles. Another commenter earlier said that this all started happening about 30-40 years ago. It's true. That was when there was a switch made from time-tested teaching methods of phonics and grammar as the building blocks for reading and writing to the "Whole Language" method of teaching these skills. --Or, rather, NOT teaching these skills on the theory that children will absorb spelling and rules of grammar and sentence construction by osmosis if they only read enough. This theory infected other subjects, too, and now we have early math education without rote memorization (which is demonized in all contexts). How is that working out? Close behind in the havoc-wreaking are other crackpot theories, such as "learning should be fun" and "red pens hurt self-esteem." Until there is a shift back toward traditional teaching methods of fundamentals in the early grades, along with a willingness to expose kids to some hard realities (sometimes learning is hard work; correction is not an attack on your value as a human being), education will never improve, no matter how much money is thrown at schools.
Tina B| 7.1.11 @ 5:40PM
Denise. . . amen, sistah!
Not going to happen, unfortunately. Times tables memorization in third grade (we all did it) is a thing of the past. Lord help us algebra teachers.
No math facts now, please, only foldables, rubrics, metacognition, frames and mats, manipulatives, student led conferences, RTI, PBS, LFS, Kagan learning, Cornell notes, yadda, yadda, yadda. . . but no fact memorization needed.
IMHO, no prior knowledge and no skill base = very little learning and no annual yearly progress (that's AYP).
Frekki| 6.30.11 @ 12:27PM
Almost all parents care about their children's education. The real problem is the general lack of a love of learning among the American middle class. When my wife was pregnant with our first (of four), we left the California suburbs for a mid-west farm. We chose this specifically in order to control the lives and education of our children. In our ramshackle, unkempt, dusty farmhouse we have five thousand books, microscopes, telescopes, abacuses, slide rules (their grand and great grandfather's), computers, a drafting table, an old chalk board, a huge Heath Kit electric project board (400 experiments!), and just mounds of fun learning junk in every corner. We do have the internet but no cable and only two channels on broadcast TV. We have reading nooks, and tree houses, a big old barn and animals. Even a pool. We did all this on purpose, and intend to be here for our grandchildren (when that happens God bless). My wife is deeply involved with the local school district, and has been asked several times to run for the school board. She won't, she is too busy. Our children are tops in the state, my second just graduated as valedictorian.
I was the teased smart kid. Luckily I was big enough and angry enough to defend myself. My wife is the product of racially based busing to a formerly all black inner city high school. She survived teaching English to her school mates because the English teacher couldn't spell.
I cannot imagine raising my children in the suburbs. We need small schools that are locally based and supported. Nothing else will work. I thought this twenty five years ago, and raised my children accordingly. It worked for us.
I cannot edit this missive fully, I am being called out to help clean the barn.
JP| 6.30.11 @ 1:11PM
Most people do love thier children. And most parents demand that thier neighbor subsidize thier children's education. If school funding was purely local we wouldn't see these magnet schools the size of Rhode Island, and which are staffed with incompetents apparatchiks.
For all the money we poured into public education we must still import an ever growing number of engineers, doctors, and scientists. Junior, it turns out, only wants a degree that can get him a sinecure with Department of Funny Walks. But, that is what our education breeds - mindless, souless bureaucrats whose only goal is a pension at 55.
DC| 6.30.11 @ 1:15PM
Frekki, well done sir. I assume you're also teaching your kids to shoot straight...you'll need that when Il Duce Nero's Praetorians come for your land, wife and children (see, e.g., Zimbabwe, appx 1979-80). The leftist assmonkeys on this site who dream of being guards at Il Duce's re-education camps sympathize with people like your wife's former illiterate English teacher, and fully expect you to subsidize parasites like that, and their union leadership. So what they can't win in elections, they'll order by administrative fiat. What they can't order by such fiat, they'll try to take violently. The only question is how far along that path are we; I expect we'll find out in Nov 2012 if not before.
In the meantime enjoy the farm, congrats to your kids, and I'd make an extra effort to increase your stock of animals. You will not be left in peace.
ManassasGrandma| 6.30.11 @ 2:45PM
My husband and I have only HS diplomas. None of our antecedents have college degrees. Many did not graduate HS. Five of our seven kids have college degrees:the two youngest are in college. We broke our backs keeping them in catholic schools, and we saw many of our friends homeschool. When advocates for the public schools say that parents don't pay attention and make children work or value education, all I can do is wonder why parents like us were deliberatly driven from the public schools. When we protested the dumbing down or liberalizing of the curriculum, we were ignored or vilified...so we left. The public schools clearly didn't want people like us.
Jeamar37| 6.30.11 @ 3:33PM
Mr. Andrews' article is somewhat confusing. He maintains that technology can transform American education by providing individualized instruction for each student. He doesn't mention the additional cost of determining each student's capability, individual learning style, and motivation but that is for another discussion. Before looking to technology for the answer to lackluster educational performance, he criticized schools for providing "state-of-the-art" media centers [which could also be described as tech centers]. I know nothing about the Yankee Institute in Hartford, Conn, but this Senior Policy Analyst's policy isn't very convincing.
Tina B| 6.30.11 @ 3:38PM
And to be honest, the public schools don't want the likes of me any longer either. I am an old school kinda gal, I believe in respect, manners, the acquisition of basic math skills and reading/writing skills over the stimulation of the senses or the coddling of the ego.
Unfortunately, many students I teach have never been praised for anything academic, or been loved unconditionally, like I was growing up. They rely on peer pressure for their gratification, not parent or teacher pressure.
I've seen first hand the effect of our culture on these children entering middle school. The parents have abdicated responsibility for their moral upbringing to the culture, the media, and everyone's peers. The adults' peers as well as the students' peers.
More power to all you parents and grandparents who are doing your best to keep your school age children on a moral, even spirituallty rich path.
You are swimming against the tide, but please, don't stop. You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world.
Don't let the culture make you stale or ineffective. Season the culture, like salt. You are meant to be a preservative, keeping the Truth alive and shining the Light wherever you go. In your homes, and in the public schools or even the private schools, children need good moral support everywhere.
Many of the churches are afraid to do their job, it is so politically incorrect. You must be the Word of God alive in this world, in America and in your home town. I am retiring as a teacher, but will never retire as a Nana, a Mom and a child of the King.
Handy| 6.30.11 @ 9:32PM
Gotta say that I don't care. Married people and other parents are just plain leeches. They suck the blood out of society on the backs of single people and childless couples. All the while they remain so sanctimonious.
In more literate times the author of this article would have received an A for research and Fs for clarity and brevity. Reading through typos and misspellings is fun, but has anyone else noticed that the comments of those who protest loudest about education are fraught with both?
I liken modern parents to people who own dogs, but will not make the effort to train them, let alone pick up after them. They won't even engage private trainers at their own expense. To them, it is all "Society's Fault." It's as though they are saying, "So what if my pooch doesn't know how to sit or heel, he drowned because you didn't teach him the dog paddle. The public school didn't have an adequate swimming pool, or adequate lifeguards."
Parents, from affluent to poor, are worse than the teachers, actually. They are enablers.
James| 7.7.11 @ 3:41PM
Many of us after years of hard manual labor suffer from crippling hand injuries so typing is difficult. These casual posts do not need the elegance of a PhD dissertation. The five typing mistakes I've made so far I will correct with my computers spell check.
And who is going to change your diaper in the old folks home if there are no young attendants?
dadfly| 6.30.11 @ 11:38PM
if we parents have to run the public schools; interview and employ teachers; get rid of bad teachers; keep a close rein on what is being taught; then why have public schools at all. we might as well do all this in a homeschool or private school setting. abolish the public education system. give vouchers for people who need them for children to attend private schools. voila, problem solved.
Handy| 7.1.11 @ 12:11AM
Me to prospectice teacher: What qualifications do you have?
Teacher to me: I have two Masters in Ed.: Literature and Cultural Studies.
Me to Teacher: Please explain what those mean, especially that Cultural Studies part.
Teacher to me: Well, it's very complicated, so you probably wouldn't understand.
Me to prospective teacher: So, if you are so good at teaching, teach me about all these so-called complexities.
Teacher to me: Frankly, we shouldn't be having this conversation. I have already been approved by the Affirmative Action Committee.
weddingdress | 7.1.11 @ 12:35AM
if we parents have to run the public schools; interview and employ teachers; get rid of bad teachers; keep a close rein on what is being taught; then why have public schools at all. we might as well do all this in a homeschool or private school setting. abolish the public education system. give vouchers for people who need them for children to attend private schools. voila, problem solved.
Handy| 7.1.11 @ 5:23AM
They wouldn't need vouchers if they didn't breed above their income level in the first place.