As we get closer and closer to the general election, one of the “hot button issues” is sure to be education. All of the conversation is going to be how will fix education. Most Democrats will tell you that it is all about money. There isn’t enough money. Most Republicans will tell you that while money is important, there is a lot of waste and we need to find a way to incent good teachers.
Unfortunately, they are both avoiding the single largest determining factor in whether or not a child succeeds has little to do with per-pupil funding or there are 50 administrative positions for every teacher. It is parental involvement. The beauty is that parental involvement costs the taxpayers nothing. Zilch. Nada. All it takes in the time of the child’s parent. This is readily apparent in the Clark County School System. A good friend of ours teaches in a school where the parents are very involved. So many parents volunteered to help out in the classroom last year that she had to make a schedule so there weren’t too many in the classroom at once. On the other end of the spectrum, one of my neighbors works in the library at middle school that has, let’s just say, less parental involvement. The students are struggling. They work the system so as to keep progressing, but aren’t getting a solid education. That’s not to say the whole school is failing, but it is difficult to work in that environment.
While additional parental involvement may be of great assistance and is, well, cheap, it’s also something you can’t legislate. As an example, in Roland Martin’s commentary on CNN.com today, he talks about this very topic. In Chicago, the superintendent of schools was on his radio show. Parent after parent called in, livid that they did not find out until right before graduation that their child was not going to graduate. Turns out, progress reports that highlight this fact were made available to parents. They were sent reminders during every marking period that their child was at risk of not graduating – they just had to come into school and pick up the cards and warnings.
Is it any wonder that with parents abdicating their responsibilities that we are seeing issues in education?
