question-markHOW WE GOT HERE
There are those involved in what has happened to America’s public school system who sincerely believe that if parents really cared about children learning, the deterioration we have seen in the past 30 years would never have happened.

They sincerely believe that the horrendous statistics that are quoted daily about what children know or don’t know and what schools are teaching or not teaching would not exist if the old triumvirate of teacher-parent – child still existed as it did in the first half of the 20th Century, when those years and the strength and success of our public schools established the century as ‘belonging’ to America.

These are incendiary beliefs in an era where ‘parents’ have become the sacred cows of education: not to be mentioned or criticized or even unnecessarily involved in their children’s education; to be treated with kid gloves and congratulated at all times by school personnel whether these are genuine sentiments or simply part of the political process we call ‘schools’.

Once upon a time in America parents were an extension of their children’s teacher and school. Children came home to parents who questioned them about what they learned that day; who had their children show them their homework assignments; who helped when help was needed and possible; who made certain the children understood what they were doing and that the homework was properly completed. Until a parent verbally ‘signed off’ on the homework it was not completed.

Teachers knew this. Teachers depended upon it. Teachers and parents communicated – often silently – about a child’s progress. Parents saw to it that a child came to school with homework properly completed, that a child was prepared for a test…was as ready as that child could be to get the best mark possible.

Parents knew even before a test what the child knew or didn’t know…and if problems continued there were phone calls and/or visits – respectful and collegial – between teacher and parent to help improve the learning process.

The parental concern then was that children could learn and grow and go as far as possible in school and be prepared for work and for careers. Teachers knew that and learning was the key.

Parents knew which teachers could teach well; which teachers were reaching their children.

In a way parents knew as much as they needed to know about the ‘best’ teachers in a school…much the same as a good Principal knows; much the same as a teaching staff knows about their best colleagues.

And today – it is all gone. All of it.

Teaching to the test has done away with learning and has done away with the art and science of teaching, too. And a whole lot of subject matter. That’s all gone.

Confusing, ill-prepared, untested, unscientific teacher evaluations are the biggest rage…with arguments over whether the entire community should know who the ‘best’ and ‘worst’ teachers are – getting all the current headlines.

And frighteningly half the parents in American schools approve of these methods.

Because for parents today school means only one thing: getting good marks…anyway possible. No longer involved, parents have no idea about what their children and doing and how well their teachers are teaching and so the Federal programs of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top seem a good thing.

When the results are dismal…when high school and college graduation rates go up – but they are based on six years not four, parents don’t seem to care.

And as long as parents stay so removed, the system will continue to sink as our rating as a great nation sinks along with it.

The old saying if you don’t know history, you are doomed to repeat it..is no longer correct. A more accurate saying would be that if you don’t know history you won’t know how to solve your problems and you are doomed.

triangle image - educationWHAT PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT MEANS NOW
The hows and whys of what happened can be enumerated but they don’t matter now.

One doesn’t go back…we need to go forward. Here is what parents can do to become involved again and assume their rightful place in the process and their responsibility for it.

Now we know that the education of teachers is totally inadequate, we know that for years and years – going back perhaps two decades – teachers come into the classroom unprepared to teach. They have no idea what to do. That is so true that you can earn a Masters Degree at the renown Columbia Teacher’s College in New York and never gain one clue as to what to do in a classroom. (At a cost of $120,000 for two years)

We also know that there is little if any genuinely successful professional development classes for these teachers no matter how long they remain on staff. Though the right kind of mentoring and training programs exist…they are not offered and certainly not mandatory.

This means that Parents must begin to demand three things:

    1. that Schools of Education who feed most NYC schools at all levels, change their methods of teaching to a medical school model which will put student teachers in classrooms with children for at least three years during their education…and not the ten or 12 weeks they receive now before getting their certificate to teach – a certificate which has little genuine meaning even if a job is forthcoming.

    2. and that each and every school in New York’s public school system institute a mandatory program of professional development that works to make teachers better and that it is constantly available to every teacher. We will outline what such a program can look like at another time.

    3. Parents must demand an end to the testing regimen that exists now – at least in elementary school initially. Such a demand is happening in a few areas in New York and it is being driven by parents with the complete cooperation of teachers. Enough is enough and the failures in the system must end now. Teachers must be permitted to teach and not ‘test’.

Parents of children at all levels must take the time to know what their children are learning in school..must review homework…must indicate a genuine and constant interest in their work. Children must know that their school day no longer ends “when the bell rings” but that there is someone at home who wants to know what’s going on. This is especially true in elementary school – because with a good beginning there is only a bad ending.

For all the obvious reasons this may not be as easy as it was ‘once upon a time’. But a parent who truly cares about a child’s learning and growth and not just a test score and a final grade, will find the way. Unless parents become genuinely involved again nothing will stem the downward tide that we are living with. Nothing.

Martin I. Hassner
Executive Director
Liberal Party of NY