Now this is an EXCELLENT IDEA !!!
Maybe we can tie it to their welfare payment or tax rate... You get a poor grade as a parent by neglecting your basic responsibilities, it costs you money... Talking about a good way to hold folks accountable for wasting our tax dollars!!!
Now how do we get folks to agree that Parents need to be held accountable for their beliefs, behaviors and irresponsibility? That our American society does not fund or tolerate poor parenting... Or do we continue saying that "Parent's know best", no matter how foolish, lazy or irresponsible they are??? Thoughts?
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16 comments:
Who is the employer and who is the employee, here? The first teacher that questions my parenting skills is going to get a good verbal woodshedding, and fired if I can figure out how. Keep it up, teachers, you're hastening your own obsolescence.
J. Ewing
It seems to me that both the Teacher and Parent are "employees" and "process partners", and both must perform their respective assigned duties very well in order to deliver the expected product that the true customer is investing in and paying for...
The true customer, our society, invests public dollars in order to ensure that children become educated and responsible citizens. The reality is that the investment fails if either the Teacher or Parent fails to perform their proper duties.
So if society wants to hold Teachers accountable for wasting Public dollars, it seems we should also hold Parents accountable... (ie something about the goose and gander...)
Thoughts?
Then the simple solution is to recognize that parents are taxpayers, too, and entitled to a good education for a dollar well spent. In fact, that should be true for those taxpayers who want this "public good" delivered with good quality and efficiency.
Let's start with holding the teachers accountable, which is the proper hierarchy of authority, until we see that problem eliminated. THEN if we have bad parents, we can consider some form of help for them.
J. Ewing
Sorry in advance... I woke up crabby this morning for some reason, must be the continuing head cold...
"THEN if we have bad parents"
Good God man, have you not been paying attention to the test results. The poor test results are by neighbor and community, not random across all schools. Therefore the primary factor is family and community. (ie parenting)
So why would we want to start with Teachers first, and then maybe address the primary driver. Both have to improve if we want to solve this problem...
READ the BOOK... "Whatever it takes"
Have a nice day... I hope to be more cheerful soon... Maybe a shower will help.
I observe that inner city schools fail far more often than do those in the suburbs. I know full well that there are "social problems" in these areas, the vast majority of them actually CAUSED by well-meaning liberal government promising to alleviate those conditions. For many years, that same mindset has told us that if we just spent a lot more money, government could educate those children and "break the cycle of poverty" but of course it has only made matters worse. If you can't educate the children and break the cycle that way, you certainly can't break the cycle educating the parents, and it wouldn't be a proper job for the government to undertake in any case.
Now, I'm not talking about abusive or totally neglectful parents, because we already have laws for those and the schools are one place where such things can be discovered and action initiated with the proper authorities. Otherwise, as far as I'm concerned, parental rights are near-abolute, certainly in the face of government's failure to deliver the education they promised. If you don't know how to teach these disadvantaged kids, get out of the way and let somebody who does.
J. Ewing
The parents I want to get poor grades are those that fail at the simple basic things:
- Is the child fed and reasonably clean?
- Does child come to school appropriately dressed for the weather?
- Does child complete and hand in the assigned homework?
- Does parent attend Teacher - Student conferences? Or if timing does not work, do they communicate with the Teacher via phone, email or visits? Especially if the child is having a hard time.
- Parent accepts shared responsibility for educating the child. They make sure the young child has the right things in their backpack, they are up and ready for the bus, the children attend school, good school behavior is not negotiable, etc...
There is no excuse for Parents not fulfilling these most basic responsibilities. And they definitely deserve an F if they choose or are unable to do these typical Parental tasks.
No one said having a kid was easy... However, I know several Parent's that seem to think they should raise themselves... And amazingly, it turned out real bad for the kids !!!
Remember the number one complaint I hear from Teachers when I attend conferences. "The parents of the kids that really need the help never show up for conferences or communicate with me... It is very frustrating..."
Funny, but I hear the opposite. I hear how public school teachers who are doing great work and delivering a good education despite the home environment are having to "fight the system" to do it. And where those teachers aren't, and nowhere are there enough of them, parents get discouraged and don't bother to go to conferences, etc. The failure of one-- the teacher-- begets the failure of the other-- the parent-- and certainly to some extent the opposite is true.
Thus, until you actually OFFER an education to the parents of these kids, it's totally unfair to say that those parents don't WANT a good education for their kids. That is why I keep citing the fact that, when scholarships OUT of failing schools are offered, parents line up at 10, 100, or 1000 to 1 for every available slot. It not only gives me hope for the future, but it convinces me that vouchers can do far more than just raise the quality of education a bit; I think it's going to produce a huge societal change, and one that' s been long overdue.
J. Ewing
"it's totally unfair to say that those parents don't WANT a good education for their kids."
Now here is the funny part... I think a bunch of the deadbeat Parents truly want a good education for their kids... The irony is that they want it as long it does not cost them any effort or require them to learn anything new.
I'll send my kids and "they" will raise and educate them.
Some people I know well are true deadbeat parents, they spend a great deal of time complaining about the school, Teachers and the kid... And how they wish the child would do better. But make no effort to improve the situation. (ie too complicated, too much work) And Lord knows that attitude migrates straight into the kid's heads.
We've got a few incompetent or deadbeat teachers in RAS, but the vast majority are good to great. Your district must have gotten the short end of the Teacher pool. I would trust most of them to grade me. I tend to respect Teachers and their opinions. (except on that silly tenure thing...)
I think we're really seeing two sides of the same coin. My kids have had some great teachers and some real duds; I know because I met them at conferences and confirmed for myself what my kids had said about them. The poor ones no doubt thought me a troublemaker and would have, no doubt, given me a terrible "score" as a parent. The good ones saw me as a "partner" in the education process or, at least as often if not more, as a "member of the board" to whom they were reporting.
But at one point we are talking past one another. There are many, many parents in the suburbs, with good schools filled with good teachers, who don't go to conferences because they exercised their school choice options long ago, in MOVING to the suburb with the "good schools." There, they are told by "the system" that the "professionals" will handle the education of their child and they are quietly discouraged from "meddling" while paying lip service to the partnership aspect. The good teachers want participation, but "the system" doesn't. In the poor schools, where there is no choice at all, there are fewer good teachers and even less interest in participation. For the same reason the prisoner doesn't want a nice weekly "chat" with the warden overseeing his weekly beat-down, poor parents will stay detached and unengaged. Until these parents see some other option available to them, they'll have no interest in participating. Discouragement is even more powerful than indifference.
Wealthy suburban parents ASSUME that "the professionals" are doing their jobs, while poor people know they are not. Neither of these teacher sets should be "grading" parents, at least until the whole "system" can honestly grade itself and pass Basic Skills.
And that is where I see our disagreement. It's not a bad idea you have, it's simply on the far outside margins of the problem. Schools are so bad, so insular, so dismissive of the "community involvement" they claim to want yet so prickly in protecting their monopoly that parents are kept at arms length and ordinary citizens ignored altogether, unless they want to cheer for the District.
J. Ewing
I strongly agree with JE on his "who's working for whom?" point. I further agree that such evaluations from a dysfunctional school or teacher are pointless.
But as a practical matter, I am even more convinced that teacher evaluations would generally depend on the results of the last referendum and their last contract.
According to the "who's working for whom?" logic, then RAS is absolutely correct in proliferating RSI, FAIR and other Magnets. The Customer/Parents are asking for this variety and therefore the School should fulfill the parent's request?
I mean they are the customer... Society is just the guy paying the bill...
The criteria I proposed would be pretty quantifiable and objective:
- homework not done
- 0 contact by parents
- -10 degrees and no gloves...
You get an F...
J,
As for discouraging "meddling", what would Teacher or Administrator "J" do if a parent asked him to change his discipline, curriculum or teaching methods? Knowing your flexible and understanding personality, I am sure you would morph to meet each Parents unique wishes. (ie soft, firm, analytical, artistic, etc)
Oh who am I kidding, I can not keep this up... You would tell them that you are the Teacher/Admin and know how to teach the kids best. You are correct, there would be no polite: "quietly discouraged from "meddling" while paying lip service to the partnership aspect."
Likely you would tell them to straighten up or find a new school. Or I could be wrong...
I wonder how full or diverse the student body would be after a few years.
As for...
"Wealthy suburban parents ASSUME that "the professionals" are doing their jobs, while poor people know they are not."
How do you know it is the schools and not the students/families causing the inner city problems??? Similar Schools, Curriculums, Teachers, etc in the Burbs do just fine on the basic skills tests. The primary variable is the students/families... That would indicate they are causing the different result...
I agree the school system needs to improve, but you base your whole argument on causality that makes no sense. The schools are similar, but the results are hugely different... (ie kids/parents are the key variable)
John, I think this is a fascinating idea that could be enlightening.
"The first teacher that questions my parenting skills is going to get a good verbal woodshedding, and fired if I can figure out how. "
Defensive much? You honestly think there's not a one area where a teacher might identify, based on the 30+ hours they spend with your child each week, where a change in their home schedule or guidelines or rewards/consequences could have a positive effect on their academics? One word of criticism and you're gunning for the teachers' job? Wow. All for personal responsibility, until someone actually asks you to be more responsible, I guess.
As far as "let's hold teachers accountable"--sure, I agree. And let's hold parents accountable, too. I'd be in favor of 360 evals in this area--parents eval their kids and the teacher; teachers eval the kids and the parents; kids eval the teacher and parents. I think it would be useful for all involved.
Also? You're not the employer. You're a taxpayer. If you think every taxpayer in the district has the privilege of directly supervising every person employed by the schools, city, state, I think you're mistaken. You absolutely have the right to express opinions to lawmakers, vote your conscience, but you don't get to push around public sector employees.
I guess I don't see, from a practical view, what the downside could be, aside from a few wounded parental egos.
--Annie
Annie, the "downside" would be that the Almighty State would be telling you how to raise your kids. Not offering to help, or making suggestions about how your student might do better, or even complaining about your child's behavior, but outright demanding that you change. I thought this was America.
And I'm sorry, but I DO insist that I have the right to "tell teachers what to do." The fact that they are insulated by government and by unions is only telling me that education needs to become a free enterprise environment, responsive to the customers AND the people paying the bills. I would treat teachers the same way I treat dentists, as professionals, and I will listen to their advice up to a point. Every dentist gets to tell me once that it would be "good to have those wisdom teeth out." If they insist or tell me a second time, I find a new dentist. A teacher that said I wasn't helping enough with homework might be appreciated, the first time and IF I agreed with that assessment. But giving me a bad "grade" for it? Ridiculous!
John, I cannot agree with your argument that the difference between urban kids and suburban kids is what causes the disparity in results, certainly not to the degree it exists. I think it's a basically racist, without meaning it that way, thing to say. Urban schools with high poverty DO have bigger challenges, there is no doubt, but our state funding formula fully compensates for that difference by sending vastly more money to urban schools.
Yet reality intrudes. Kids who "escape" from the urban (aka failing) schools do better, sometimes drastically better. Same parents, same poverty, but a different school. THAT is the difference that I think needs to be tackled first and foremost. Until every kid has the opportunity for something better than what the State monopoly sees fit to supply, and that we are TOLD is "just as good," it's not right nor helpful to criticize the parents. Again, my concern here is that you're giving the schools one more excuse for not doing a better job, and they absolutely do not need more excuses. They need to be told to do the job or let somebody else do it.
J. Ewing
Nice idea, BUT! Do you really think the bad parent cares if they get a bad grade from a teacher? They don't care if their kids get bad grades, so why should they care if the teacher gives them a bad grade! It comes down to this; THEY WOULD CARELESS! Ultimately the kids careless!
I agree that the Parents that need the most help would not care. Therefore the rating would need to be tied to something they do care about... (ie money to buy ???)
Now as for Rascist... I have no firm idea who lives in the communities of the poor performing schools. I have never looked into it, I just know that the students in those communitees do poorly on standardized tests. I really am indifferent to their race... (since I have no interest in tying this mess to Race) They are just a student body that is struggling to me.
As for students doing better when they move to the burbs... You are making my point that "Excellent Parents" that sacrifice for their children make all the difference. It is the same effect that occurs when these Parents move their kids to Charters, Privates, etc within their community. The kids succeed because diligent Academically Minded Parents have run from their "typical" community and school. These Parents infuse their children with a belief that academics, behavior and hard work matter, and help them grow up responsible.
Therefore the old community and school decline further, and the "NEW" school looks better.
Now, I agree that we pay more in the communitees with struggling students/schools. But it is probably not enough to make up for the poor parenting... Remember the kids are only in School ~7 hrs a day, whereas they are in the disfunctional home setting 17 hrs a day + weekends + holidays + Summer. That is a losing fromula.
I'm simply not going to condemn parents for not making "good choices" when they don't have any choices presented to them. Yes, those who are lucky enough to LITERALLY "win the lottery" and get a voucher for a better school will do better because their parents made the effort to get and use the voucher. But didn't the 999 parents who DIDN'T win the lottery make the same effort and deserve the same choice?
We're talking about percentages. I believe that the vast majority of parents of kids in failing schools would jump at the opportunity to get their kids into something better, and would be more involved in the kids' educations if they knew the kids were being educated rather than being cheated out of an education. Those parents who wouldn't make a good choice GIVEN a choice-- something that the vast majority of non-rich parents do NOT have today-- are a small minority that we can deal with "on the side" after we solve the larger problem.
Again, we don't need to be giving schools and teachers more to do when they haven't managed their most basic tasks, and we don't need to be giving them more excuses why they cannot accomplish those tasks, especially with the mounting evidence that others are able to it for the same or less money.
J. Ewing
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