Parental Accountability

In this weekly workshop series, this weeks main topics is blogging. As I already blog (however infrequently), this does feel a big pedantic, but I willingly oblige. The assignment here is to come up with an idea that is maybe controversial or stimulating and write about it. Last night in my graduate class, I think I came across a great starting point.

I often read another teacher's blog, Mr. Lee (his blog is linked on the right side of the page) and his most recent entry and poll I have found quite interesting. In fact, it has been circulating through my mind periodically. This is the concept of accountability. Who is accountable or responsible for the performance of our students?

In my second graduate class of the evening, we were discussing precisely this topic. It seemed that everyone was trying to give responsibility (or place blame, depending on how you spin it) to some figure or person in a students life. Mostly those figures included administrators, parents, teachers, politicians or students themselves. During discussion, one gentleman shucked everyone of responsibility, except for the teachers. I found this to be entirely irresponsible and quite frankly, irritating. He specifically said that students' parents are not responsible for their students academic well being because they lack to skills to be responsible.

That was the most irritating part. While parents may lack the skills to help their children with homework or even simpler tasks like acquiring notebooks or pencils, this does not relieve them of responsibilities. Lack of skill is not an acceptable excuse. I openly acknowledged that this may be a hard-nosed approach, but I think it's a hard line that needs to be drawn.

Kids learn by example. The first and foremost example from whom they may learn are their parents or guardians. So while parents may not have the skills to help their children, they should be required to figure out ways to be responsible. Some might say that jobs or familial obligations prohibit parents from participating in their child's education. Again, no excuse. This just means that a parent's priorities are not in an appropriate order.

Teachers, schools, educators, administrators, politicians and students constantly have accountability shoved down their throats, while parents are allowed to sit back and let the systems raise their child. It is disgusting and socially irresponsible. Parents should be held to the same (if not more) accountability as other figures in a students life. They had a child and they should take the appropriate responsibility to ensure that child receives a quality education.

Adjusting to Chaos

With the second week of teaching coming to a close, I find that I am beginning to adjust. I know what to expect when I go into my class everyday now. This is not to say I can anticipate everything of course, but I know what I'm in for.

One thing I'd like to put out there has to do with class size. You probably read that and think, "yea, you and every other teacher." I realize that teaching costs money and small classes cost money. We quantify these costs every time checks are cut to the city or to my checking out. It's a lot (well, the expense of education is alot- not my salary). To cut class sizes in half would cost somewhere around double, if not more for an initial transition period. Obviously that's a ton of money.

Let's look at this amount of money as a relative value now. Relative to the cost of our prison system, relative to the cost of law enforcement, relative to the cost of having a welfare system, relative to the cost of upkeep on our infrastructures, relative to the cost of dwindling innovation, relative to the cost of an economy that struggles to stay above water. Relative to those costs, the cost of halving the number of students in a classroom is pennies.

I realize students come from situations where their parents may do crack at home. Maybe they don't have dinner or breakfast. Maybe they have to work to support their parents. Maybe they have to watch out for their lives on a daily if not hourly basis. These things all have an influence. BUT, I am beginning to believe that a small class size would override these impediments to some degree. Managing a room full of 34 people, many of which come from less than great situations like those above, is a task that is not meant for the weak. In fact, it is hardly manageable if at all.

If one of the people who decides education policy in our governments were to be in a classroom and be expected to manage that many people of that sort, I'd bet my salary they would throw their hands in the air and give up. It is truly an overwhelming experience. On top of that, teachers are expected to have these 34 people from unfortunate backgrounds have substantial learning and achieve well. It is an unreasonable expectation.

I truly and completely believe many of our country's public school are in a full blown crisis. Teachers are given too many students to manage and therefore each student gets less quality attention. I hate admitting it, but I have no choice but to be this way with my own students. There are simply too many. If I were to give the attention I'd like to give to each and every student, I wouldn't sleep, eat, go home, nothing. I would have no time at all. Between calling parents, organizing and grading papers, recording grades, creating lesson plans and every other teaching-related task, it's simply not reasonable to have one person manage all of those things for 140 young people.

I am not asking for sympathy or a raise. I am asking policy-makers to reconsider the implications of having this educational crisis in our hands. What happens when people don't graduate high school, they can't read, they can't do basic math, use a ruler, form a sentence. We all suffer. If there is one thing I will work to achieve in education, aside from helping students-obviously, it is to reduce class sizes. It is the closest thing we can get to a silver bullet.