I ran into a friend in a Wal-Mart parking lot yesterday after dropping off my youngest at kindergarten. She asked how I liked the teacher, and we ended up launching into a fiery discussion about the schools. Issue after issue arose, and we resolved to get more involved and have a say by going to school board meetings.
This isn’t the first time the education of my little ones has caused me to rise up in righteous indignation. Before we moved to California, we lived in a small town in the South in which there were a number of problems with the school system in town. One big problem was that of “white flight,” quite honestly. Even though the town was maybe half and half whites and blacks, with a very small sprinkling of other minorities thrown in (which included our family since my husband is Filipino), a huge percentage of the students in the system were black. Now I had no problem with that at all except that things basically had split along economic lines. Many whites and the more educated and better-off-economically blacks had moved to different neighboring towns or the county (which all had separate school systems: don’t get me started on the craziness of that: what a waste of resources), and most families left behind were poor. Again, not a problem in terms of how I viewed them, but it definitely had an impact on the system and how things ran. Before I end up having to write a lengthy discourse on all the issues, let me just cut it short here by saying there were many issues, and I started going to school board meetings and speaking up. I didn’t want to just join in the “white flight”; I wanted to see if I could stay and make things better.
Needless to say, I realized that it was a fight I simply couldn’t fight alone. We ended up moving to California, where we found a great neighborhood to live in and in which the school setup is a much better one, with small neighborhood elementaries that seem to work well. But that doesn’t mean that all is great.
First off, the economy is bad. Like THAT’S a piece of news for everyone. But it certainly has affected our schools. In California, the economy and the schools have been hit particularly hard. What once was a wonderful, thriving system is now scraping by.
I could write a whole doctoral thesis on each of the facets of the larger issue here, but let me just say a few things as I see them.
First, there is no question that the breakdown of the nuclear family has contributed to the difficulties we face in schools today. Divorced and single parents have it harder in terms of trying to parent their kids and be available for them when it comes to schools. The economy has made it incredibly challenging as well. When every parent out there is working and no one is able to stay home even part-time, it makes it difficult to have the parental support needed for great education (volunteering, fund-raising, time just spent teaching children at home casually). Collapse of family structures has led to children not being taught or modeled all the things they need to help them be secure, (somewhat) well-behaved citizens of society. What has happened is that schools (and teachers) are now expected to teach young people EVERYTHING they need to know to be good members of our society. And that is impossible. Historically, families have nurtured and taught children, and schools have simply focused on making sure they know how to read, write, do math, know history and science. Now the schools have to teach citizenship and get kids to learn to behave, when that should have been a priority at home. Again, simplifying here tremendously, but this is the Cliff’s Notes version. Suffice it to say I have heard so many stories from teachers about the issues they have to deal with and what they are expected to do to, basically, parent children. Teachers have never been paid enough for the work they do, and they certainly aren’t paid enough to parent 30 or 100 kids.
Second, I have had to conclude that the more the federal government has tried to get involved, the worse schools’ situations have become. It’s been well-intentioned, I’m sure. But as more and more laws and guidelines have been created and passed down (with badly needed federal dollars attached by a thousand strings), the more hamstrung districts, individual schools, and teachers have become. They’ll do anything to qualify for those federal monies. What infuriated me yesterday was learning that our school system had instituted a new teacher-inservice time that’s incredibly inconvenient for just about anyone (parents and teachers alike, as far as I can tell, and any parents, whether working or stay-at-home) just because having the meeting every Monday morning from 8 to 9 a.m. would allow fewer kids to arrive late to school. Yes, they’d had such problems with students arriving late that the district then could not count the students as present. And an absent child means no money that day from the government. So the district thought, “Hey, we’ll have this meeting at this precise time so kids won’t be late and we’ll get the money.” I can appreciate that in some way, but it just riles me up that 1) the district had to inconvenience everyone with this new stupid plan and 2) the district is in such dire straits and in such desperate need of every penny from the government that they’d have to do this. Again, the government should not have such power over the schools as to cause this kind of stuff to happen.
I could write pages here. But what makes me angry is that as a parent who cares deeply about my children’s education, I have had to put in a ton of time and effort to make sure that it’s a decent one and they’re getting all they need. I shouldn’t have to check up on every little thing or be mightily inconvenienced. Education should be something that I can trust in. But I have to figure out how to squeeze in yet another thing in my already heavily-loaded schedule (which, might I add, is not full because of trips to the spa; it’s loaded with things that benefit my four children, who range in age from high school junior down to kindergartener) to just be sure that crazy things aren’t going on.
Sure, there are definitely places and people who have it worse. Sure, I’m grateful that we have a free country and one in which it’s a priority to provide a free education to all citizens (and non-citizens…). I’m generally glad to participate in the process and do my part to volunteer. But my mama-bear instincts sometimes make my claws come out when I find out about all the problems that exist.
I don’t know for sure how to solve the problems. I know one solution would be to strengthen families. But that’s certainly a big one, isn’t it? Another is to get the federal government less involved in education and cut a lot of the strings tying funding to a ton of regulations. I’ve learned that No Child Left Behind has flopped. There are still tons of children being left behind. More testing of students, more teachers being judged by frankly meaningless numbers, and more oversight by big government isn’t going to fix anything. It’s just made things worse.
Yep, this mama bear is super-busy already. But now I’m going to figure out how to find some time to get even more involved. I wish it were possible for more people to do the same.
Life and Lims 
Unfortunately, for parents, teachers, and children, the demise of the nuclear family IS one of the MAIN cultural factors in this country, which has negatively affected how children are performing in our schools.
[See my youtube clip http://youtu.be/PtxRHM_rWVI LASOAP American Students v. Other Students in the World.]
BUT, you “cannot legislate morality”, and so politicians legislate education policies, which fail, and penalize already overburdened teaching professionals, which is the last thing they need, in addition to their over-sized classes, increasingly disrespectful students, and unrealistic expectations from politicians, bureaucracies, and the voting public.
There are other issues associated with the destruction of families, which also affect children and their learning: drug addiction, poverty, gangs (oh yes, fathers and mothers run with them), and a lack of values and responsibility.
There was a time in our country when a MAJORITY of parents, rich or poor, formally educated or not, black or white, impressed upon their children how important it was to try their hardest in school and to be respectful to their teachers and their principal.
Parents like that are now in the MINORITY, and it shows in the students we are educating, as they are a DIRECT reflection of their upbringing.
Amazing…there was no NCLB when Condoleezza Rice was educated in a segregated South. Winston Churchill had a terrible time in school, as did Albert Einstein. No NCLB, and yet they became such great contributors to society.
My school teachers often sat behind their desks 70% of the time I was in their classroom, dishing out “independent work”.
We were rarely “engaged” by our teachers as students, except for in band, drama, choir, wood-shop, mechanics and auto class, art or physical education/athletics…which is ironic since many of these programs have suffered under the new “enlightened” austerity measures in education.
Today, “student engagement” is the new buzzword. Teachers run themselves ragged walking about the room, involved in each and every student’s activity and workload. I am not saying this is not beneficial to children. It is. But, it is exhausting, and there is no evidence, in my mind, that my students will fair any better in this world because of it.
But, they WOULD fair better with a stable enriching family life.
In addition, this generation of teachers, the one I am a part of, has NEVER been more SCRIPTED, more DIRECTED, and more WATCHED than they are today.
I never ever never ever, in all my years of elementary, junior high and high school saw a principal enter into a classroom to observe a teacher…ever! I cannot even recall a principal coming into any of my classes to claim a student for discipline proceedings.
Today, in my district, a principal is told to be in campus classrooms ideally, nearly daily.
Again, is this beneficial?
It certainly keeps teachers “on their toes” (and anxiety-ridden).
But, did I not achieve in life, despite the fact that the teachers, who influenced me were not constantly observed by administration?
Yes, I did.
And, they were not even scripted.
They had standards.
However, their methodology was NOT prescribed. Their “manner” was not dictated.
I took a standardized test when I went to school in Texas.
It was the California Achievement Test (CAT).
To my best recollection, I took it once at the end of 5th grade.
If there were any other years we took such a test, I cannot recall it.
Were my teachers any “worse” because they were not hounded to “raise scores, raise scores, raise scores…to PROVE they were a ‘good’ teacher”?
Perhaps.
But, given my adult and professional perspective, I would say there were many teachers who deeply influenced my life, who would not have been great score producers.
They “raised” people, not scores.
Darling, there is a reason for the new starting time, but as a present employee of the school district of which you speak…I will have to talk about it…off the record.
Hm. ANOTHER reason for the Monday starting time? Eager to hear it.
It’s frustrating to be what I consider to be a “normal” parent but be in the minority. Arrrrggggh. Or rather, grrrrrrr.