School improvements begin with parents

With school now under way, a friend sent an interesting article from the Elks magazine that concerns the American education system. To be real honest, it just reinforces much of what I've said for years.

Microsoft's Bill Gates - who is one gazillionaire who puts his money where his mouth is - says that in many ways, high schools in this country are obsolete. He and many others are calling for both a reform and a redesign of the traditional high school education.

But all of the experts do agree on two important points.

First, all those involved in education - parents, teachers, administrators and students themselves - must establish what is expected in school and then stick to those goals. When we dumb-down the process, everyone fails. There is also a side agreement or understanding that the way we test many students is simply outdated. Few employers could care less what a student makes on an achievement test. But that's not the most important point.

The one area of total agreement is that we can no longer hold "everyone else" responsible for the failure of a student.

"It starts first of all with the family unit, holding parents accountable for working with their children," the article says. It also points out as I have so many times, despite the massive outlay of tax dollars, there is no noticeable improvement in the outcome of education.

But back to the point. If everyone agrees that the key to success is parental involvement, just how do you mandate that participation? I suspect the answer is that you simply cannot force parents to take an active role in the education of their child. Which really makes you wonder why they had a child in the first place.

A leading education consultant said all four groups - teachers, school districts, parents and student - must be held accountable. In my opinion, that's an easy task for everyone except parental involvement and accountability.

On one final note. If you study the recent MAP test scores for Missouri - or specifically Sikeston - you find achievement success in virtually every group but certain sub-groups. The common factor in these sub-groups is a lack of parental involvement. The problem is so obvious but the solution remains unanswered. At the very least we need to quit blaming teachers and schools and we need to abandon the notion that more money will solve the problem.