Thomas Friedman’s recent NYT column about public education, “How About Better Parents,” cites the conclusions of recent studies that the quality of parental involvement is a key factor in a child’s academic success. Hardly big news, Friedman’s said in his conclusion: “To be sure, there is no substitute for a good teacher. There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let’s stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.”
It would be nice to have better parents in our society, but, the big question that Friedman does not address is: What are the public policies that will help parents and our educational system to be better?
Many comments responding to Friedman’s article point out that parents who are struggling financially — parents in poverty — have huge challenges. Some teachers wrote comments about students who come to school hungry. One reader wrote, “What about the millions of kids whose parents are addicted to drugs and alcohol, who are suffering mental illness, and who cannot feed their children?” Some comments said Friedman was blaming the victim.
We have a system of public education, spending $10,000, or more, on each student, each year, yet, showing miserable results: big percentages of students never graduating from high school, and many of those graduating unprepared to function as productive and responsible citizens in a democracy.
It’s fair to say, “Isn’t it awful that there are so many awful parents.” It’s fair to say, “Education has huge problems with no easy solutions.” But it seems unconscionable to conclude, “As a society we can do nothing.” It seems unreasonable to argue, “We are doing the best we can. Our system cannot be improved.”
A question needs to be framed in such a way that a solution to the question is possible. Friedman reveals the constricted space of how conventional thinking currently frames the discussion when he writes, “There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction.” That phrase deserves to be reread, several times. If a “teacher” is defined as as disseminator of curriculum and “education” is defined in terms of classroom instruction, then, to bring more success to the system, there are only narrow solutions possible.
Debating how to get better classroom instruction, or how to get more parental support for current school practices, in the big picture, amounts to arguing over how to best arrange the deck chairs on the Titantic. We need a bigger POV: What is the purpose of the $150,000, or more, spent on a K-12 education, and how should this resource best be spent?
Bad parents and poverty are huge problems. Friedman’s article should remind us, for public education, what is needed is an in-depth investigation of the total system. We need to arrive at wise public policies. What is needed is a focus on the big picture, beginning with defining the purpose / aim of the system.
See:
- If The Aim Of Public Education Is To Provide Opportunity — How Should $150,000 Per Student Be Spent?, By Mike Bock, on November 22nd, 2010.
Financial poverty is not the problem. Moral poverty is. While Jewish immigrant children bested all other kids in the ghettos (not only black but also Irish, Italian, etc)their parents were no richer. Then Asian kids came and bested those left in the ghetto (largely black and lower class whites). Again their parents were no richer but their parents, like the Jewish parents had a good work ethic and committment to education.
The only program we need (and it should not be a federal role as such is not authorized by the Constitution) is to incarcerate and sterilize bad parents. Oh, and build and staff lots of orphanages, because the rot is too great within our lower classes.