Stop chewing the fat and get to the meat of improving schools
Published December 26, 2014
by Bill Massey, former teacher and principal, published in News and Observer, December 25, 2014.
I want to help improve public school education, but it is plagued by so many problems, I don’t know where to start. No one does.
Problems? What problems are you talking about?
I’m referring to low test scores, high dropout rates, underfunding, over-crowding, too much misbehavior, too little discipline, good teacher attrition, bad teacher retention, under-involved parents, overbearing parents, low teacher morale and high teacher frustration. See what I mean?
Yeah, but only one of those is a problem; all the other things you mentioned are symptoms of that problem.
Huh? Which one is the problem?
Un- or under-involved parents. When parents don’t respect the value of education, neither will their children. In fact, rather than depending upon schools to primarily educate their children, too many parents these days are abdicating more and more of their parental responsibilities to teachers and that distracts teachers from their own responsibilities – teaching.
Which parental responsibilities are parents shirking?
A lot of kids arrive late many mornings because parents don’t get them up and to their school bus stops on time. Not only are they tardy, but they are also tired because they stayed up half the night playing video games, they are unprepared because their parents don’t monitor whether they did their homework assignments, they are hungry because their parents know schools will provide them breakfast, and they are without pencils or paper because parents know teachers will supply those materials using their own money.
Maybe those parents don’t have money for those supplies.
Oh, but they have money for their kids to have smartphones? It’s not about money; it’s about priorities.
OK, but what about all those other problems?
Again, those aren’t problems, they’re symptoms of this problem. If you don’t believe me, let’s follow the cause and effect chain. When kids show up at school late, sleepy, tired, hungry, unprepared, incapable and disinterested, they struggle and fall behind in their studies, so they resort to misbehavior to relieve their boredom and to get the attention they are lacking at home. This misbehavior is not only disruptive, it is also infectious as more kids engage in it, and the snowball grows until classroom misbehavior escalates to the point of not only being disruptive but destructive and disrespectful to teachers and other students who would like to learn something.
So, why don’t teachers and principals just punish these misbehaving kids the way we were punished when we acted up at school?
When you were in school, what happened when you got into trouble and your parents were called?
I got punished at school AND my daddy whipped my butt when I got home. Home was the last place I wanted to go after school on those occasions.
How often did you get into trouble at school?
Not very often, believe me!
Why not?
I just told you; because I knew my daddy would whip my butt until I couldn’t sit down when I did.
Exactly. That’s because when we came along, our parents teamed up with our teachers to get us educated. Nowadays, students and their parents gang up on teachers to get the teachers punished when a disgruntled student doesn’t get his or her way.
I suppose all the behavior related distractions in classrooms, and a lack of resultant consequences at home, is a big reason kids aren’t doing as well academically as they could.
Yep. And when high-stakes test scores aren’t up-to-snuff, politicians and education experts get involved and start pointing fingers and looking for someone to blame. That someone is almost always a teacher. Then, in their infinite wisdom, legislators start imposing more regulations accompanied by threats of more dire consequences for failure, and …
More dire consequences for the students?
For the teachers, and that makes low test scores take on even higher stakes. Then they cut funding to public schools and start looking for alternative avenues to “better” education, like private schools funded with tax money. Less money for public schools equals less teachers equals more students in each class equals less one-to-one attention for students equals less classroom manageability equals more misbehavior equals …
Whoa! What is that … the new math?
You could say that. And it involves the subtraction of good teachers from our schools because they are burned out with blame-fatigue, and the remainder includes the addition of more bad teachers. As a consequence, parents who have been involved with their children’s education feel compelled to get overly involved at school because, in their minds, they must salvage their children’s futures. That causes teachers to get even more demoralized.
Unfortunately, as this cycle is getting started for elementary school kids, it is ending for too many high school students who drop out and get caught up in a different cycle, one of unemployment, poverty, and too often, drugs and crime.
What about the kids? Shouldn’t they be held responsible, and accountable?
Are you suggesting that since our community remains unwilling to hold parents accountable, we should heap their responsibilities upon their children? Kids are pretty responsible for the things they are prepared to do, but they are not prepared to be adults.
Then someone should do something about this downward spiral of parental complacency. Don’t you think?
Not someone – everyone. Everyone should do something. Starting with our supposed leaders.
So you’re saying that if our community leaders don’t start helping us find effective ways to help parents help their children – whether they want help or not – our schools will produce future generations of uneducated parents who will be unable to help their future children?
Yep.
But our community leaders keep saying they can’t do anything about irresponsible parents.
If that’s true, they probably won’t be able to do anything about our economy, unemployment, the environment, teenage pregnancy, youth-on-youth violence, rising crime rates, escalating health care costs, will they? That’s frightening.
What are you willing to do to help our public schools situation improve?
I’m going to keep writing about this stuff until someone steps forward and leads us out of this mess. As they say, we can eat this elephant one bite at a time. We just need to get to the meat of this matter and stop chewing the fat.
Bill Massey of Raleigh is a retired teacher and principal.
December 26, 2014 at 8:38 am
Frank Burns says:
Excellent analysis of public education. In solving problems the problem needs to be correctly defined and you have clearly done that.
Problem:Parents are not living up to their responsibilities in getting their children educated. They are not showing respect to the teachers, not getting their children motivated to do their homework, getting them to bed on time for getting to school.
Now that we know the problem, let's develop options for solving this problem in getting parents to do their job of parenting. They need to be held accountable. Throwing more money at public education will not solve the defined problem.
December 26, 2014 at 8:39 am
Richard Bunce says:
So none of this explains why the government education establishment fights any and all school choice programs that empower parents to be involved with their children's education. Perhaps the root cause is not parents that do not care but parents who have grown tired of banging their head against the wall of the government education system that for too long has believed they know better than parents what their children need? Give all parents real choice, not just the relatively wealthy ones, and see parent involvement increase. Any school choice program I have ever seen has always had more applicants than positions.
December 26, 2014 at 10:44 am
Norm Kelly says:
This post appeared in the N&D!?!!!? Incredible. Someone at the N&D was either asleep or on 'winter break'! It's so unusual to see an honest, truthful, accurate post in anything related to the N&D. Isn't this like the 2nd truthful, 'conservative', accurate post this year? If they keep this up, it's possible people could start to look to the N&D for NEWS. It's also possible their circulation numbers could rebound. I won't hold my breath!
So, let's look at some of the POSSIBLE solutions, suggestions, tools available to accomplish some of what's mentioned in this post.
Let's look at conservative proposals. Allow parents, those of us who are SUPPOSED to be involved in our kids lives, to PICK the school our kid goes to. If that means parents get a voucher to send OUR kids to a private school because that's what WE decide is best for our kid that we are involved with, then that's what we should be allowed to do. If we believe that sending our kid to the neighborhood high school will simply result in a high student, then we should be allowed to transfer our kid to another high school where getting high isn't the daily goal. If that means that a particular school is absent a significant number of students, wouldn't that send 2 messages to school leaders? First, that the school sucks and parents are taking control. Second, that interested, involved parents actually are taking control when given the opportunity and are willing to make decisions of what's best for THEIR kid.
Now, let's look at the lib/demon/socialist proposals for fixing education. Spend more money. Allow 'associations' ('union' to normal people) to make more decisions, have more power throughout the system. Spend more money. Send your kid to a school quite distant from your house to make it more difficult for you to be an involved parent. Spend more money. Eliminate as much as possible any disciplinary actions so the stats start to come down; not because student behavior has improved but because behavior problems are being ignored. Spend more money. Use statistics to insure that same number of whites as blacks are being disciplined, the same number of girls as boys are being disciplined, the same number of motivated, high-scoring students are disciplined as low-achievers, eliminate discipline as much as possible to improve the statistics. Spend more money.
That about sums it up. Libs, as per usual, have no solutions, no proposals, no idea how to fix anything. And they continuously, constantly, repeatedly whine about any proposal from any conservative. And they make up reasons why they oppose conservative, useful solutions. Kinda like the Wake County busing situation. Libs implemented busing cuz it was easier to move kids around (hide the problem) than it was to get good teachers hired into the classrooms, to get quality books in the classroom, and any other number of reasons. Not actually do anything to improve the situation, but move the problem around so it's harder to notice. When it was pointed out that the school board had taken this approach to the problem, they simply denied it. When the Republicans took control of the school board, and started allowing parents to have SOME control, the libs did nothing but whine & complain about it. When libs took over the school board, what was their first decision? Take control back away from the PARENTS! School choice was to be as limited as possible. And spend more money!
December 26, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Kirt Landry says:
I'd love to see the discussion of this on NC Spin because I'm dying to know what the left side of the discussion has to say in response to this. Heck, I'd like to be on the panel!
December 29, 2014 at 8:36 pm
william bourne says:
AMEN. After twenty years of teaching I gave up. You fight the kids, you fight the parents and you fight weak administrators who are too busy looking out for themselves. It's a hopeless fight at this point. As I told Gov. Perdue on a tour in 2008, MAKE PARENTS ACCOUNTABLE. Somehow, they have to see the value of actually being a parent and how education can help THEIR children.....that is if the parents actually know their kids. Next, make EVERY staff member of the NC Dept. of Education work in an actual school for a week, ANNUALLY. They have no idea what the rules and wonderful stupid ideas they pass down to make their teachers do, other than actually teach in a classroom. The level of BS is way above 100%. Most haven't seen a classroom in thirty years----guess what??? IT AIN't the OLD DAYS!
December 30, 2014 at 1:33 pm
Richard Bunce says:
It is always interesting to see government school bureaucrats, administrators, teachers complain about their primary customers, the students parents... admitting they are cannot perform their primary task, educate their customers children... while at the same time doing everything they can to prevent these parents from having any options, any meaningful choices in their child's education. That would threaten government school funding, not per student, which actually increases in most school choice programs, but total funding. That is why I often say, to the government education industrial complex students are just a number in a funding formula. Whenever real education choice is offered there are always more parents signing their children up than there are vouchers available.
January 1, 2015 at 10:50 am
Kirt Landry says:
Not all, but too large a group are worthy of the complaint. Some just need help in understanding what they need to do. However, it is taboo to tell any parent how to actually do the job of parent. Few parents are willing to admit they have done anything in a lesser fashion. There are good parents out there. They are the minority.
I don't see anyone admitting that. Where there are willing and cooperative customers, and the proper resources success is made. Where there is not, the successes are far fewer.
There are those within the educational system that are for choice. However, those same folks know that what will be created will be high need schools that the public will not be willing to fund. The teachers will then be blamed as failures at those schools, and the lack of effort and/or cooperation on the part of parents, or inability to do so, will not be considered.
"That would threaten government school funding, not per student, which actually increases in most school choice programs, but total funding."
You mean like how the education lottery was billed as an addition rather than a replacement?
"That is why I often say, to the government education industrial complex students are just a number in a funding formula."
That I can agree with if you speak of many central office administrators and school board members. But do you think the CEO and shareholders of private companies think of the individual customer in a better light?
Whenever real education choice is offered there are always more parents signing their children up than there are vouchers available.
I agree that it can be part of the solution, but it isn't the total solution.
January 2, 2015 at 11:43 am
Richard Bunce says:
Blame the parents again... just set them free. YOU do not know what is best for every parent's child. YOU are not responsible for what is best for every parent's child. IF parents decide that government schools should focus their efforts on a particular group of students then that will be the task given to government schools by their customers. I would expect no better result and eventually a private solution found but that is how the education market should work.
The difference is the private company owners and executives do not have armed government agents to make sure their customers continue to do business with them. When their customer moves on so does their revenue. In the government school systems when parents move their students into a private system significant funding stays at the school. The NC Education Voucher is about half the per student funding level so every voucher used actually increases funding per student ratio in government schools.
January 2, 2015 at 10:31 pm
Kirt Landry says:
You might want to go back and read what I wrote. My first sentence says that not all parents are the same. Judging from your response, you do lump everyone together as a monolithic block.
Newsflash - parenting is not completely instinctive. Parents are fallible and can be unable to make the correct decision for their kids. No, teachers don't know everything. However, they are professionals that do know something. To completely ignore their knowledge and experience, as you seen to be doing, is a disservice.
And, should you go back and read what I wrote, you might happen to notice that I agree with you in some places. Reasonable people can and will solve the educational problems.
January 4, 2015 at 1:42 pm
Richard Bunce says:
Reasonable people can... once the unreasonable supporters of the government education industrial complex are removed from the process.
The traditional government school advocates oppose parental choice for any parents even in some cases parents paying the full cost of both the government and private option of their choice, especially home schooling.
