Parents, Not Education, Need Reform
The news is in, and the news is bad … again. American high school seniors rank among the world’s worst in math and science.
But that’s not the half of it. When seniors taking advanced math and science courses are compared, America’s kids are still at the bottom of the heap.
Given the general state of U.S. public education, no one should be surprised at the overall ranking. But what, pray tell, could explain the poor showing of our best and brightest? I have a theory. The problem is parents.
America’s best students tend to come from middle and upper-middle class families, where parents’ educational levels are fairly high. They are selected for advanced placement on the basis of achievement test scores, grades and parental pressure.
Leaving aside the “coaching” factor as regards achievement tests, it is a well-known fact that today’s grades are by no means an accurate representation of either ability or performance. They are inflated for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is to prevent indignant parents from swarming administrative offices the day after report cards are issued.
Not surprisingly, the parents most likely to swarm come disproportionately from the middle and upper-middle classes. These parents tend to provide their children with lots of homework enabling.
These parents provide answers on request to homework assignments, do almost all the work on science projects and check each and every homework assignment to make sure it goes back to school without blemish.
When their children don’t make As on tests, they complain to teachers. If that doesn’t get results, they complain to administrators. Nine out of 10 times, that gets results, because administrators are scared to death of lawyers, which middle/upper-middle class parents can, and often will, afford.
If Johnny Smith is selected for advanced placement over Billy Jones, Billy’s chief enablers raise sacred perdition, demanding a re-evaluation. Miraculously, the second evaluation shows the first evaluation was in error, and Billy’s genius is given due recognition. Replicate this story thousands of times, and you have advanced placement classes filled with teens who shouldn’t be there.
If an AP teacher has the temerity to give an AP student a grade lower than B (as deserved), the student’s parents will - you guessed it! - complain, and the grade is changed so as not to dampen the youngster’s chances of getting into Highfalutin’ University.
The problem is what I call “instant gratification parenting,” or IGP, to which middle and uppermiddle class parents seem most susceptible. IGP parents take such things personally. The child who makes straight A’s must have straight-A parents, right?
Less than superior performance scores threaten IGP parents to the marrow. What they fail to realize is that in working so hard to elevate tomorrow’s grades, they depress their children’s long-term achievement levels. So, when an international test is given, America’s AP kids struggle for the finish line.
And who, pray tell, are their parents going to complain to now? Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general? This dismal news about America’s future will no doubt prompt more rhetoric on the need for education reform. What the pundits don’t seem to grasp is that education reform would become completely unnecessary with parent reform.
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The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Rosemond The Charlotte Observer