The analogy I would draw about private schools is that they’re like gyms. You might meet some buff people and ask them where they work out. They tell you gym X so you join that…but if you’re not willing to do the work, you’ll stay flabby. The gym could coach you in terms of which machines are good for pectorals or what will give you a good cardio workout…but it doesn’t have a magic wand that actually forces you to do the work.
Of course, public schools have a lot of the same “machines” that private schools do—more, in fact. Public schools are changing a lot, trying to improve, but it never seems to be enough. Many of us acknowledge that too many kids aren’t coming to school ready to be taught. As burundi points out, some are already in dire risk by age 7. Unless we turn that 7 year-old around, they’re likely to lose more and more ground until we can’t reach them any more.
Trying legislate parenting raises major flags, with the spectre of Child Services going Nazi on everybody. But I think it’s necessary.
E.g. I posted earlier about truancy…in one of my searches, I found a judge sentencing parents who allowed the kid to miss 100 days of school! I’m not sure whether to call that negligence or abuse, but I am sure it’s unconscionable.
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What kind of future does a kid have without a basic education? Everybody knows there are high school graduates who can’t read their own diploma, so what does it mean when some don’t even finish? There will be those who learned enough to be functional, but some will be functionally illiterate.
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Education is compulsory. It’s the will of the state and people aren’t supposed to be able to act on their own “better judgment” about this.
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Education is compulsory for multiple reasons. In no particular order…
A) We need an educated workforce so we keep bringing up the next generation of doctors, lawyers, and so on that we need in order to be a functional society.
B) We need to be competitive in the world economy.
C) We need to educate so that people know the rights and responsibilities they will have as adults.
D) We need to keep teenagers off the street.
E) We need to keep integrating society.
And so on.
Beyond that, truant students are wasting resources. They throw away taxpayer money on one hand, and sometimes use taxpayer money when the cops have to arrest them or they end up on welfare etc.
As long as we focus on what’s wrong with the school like it’s a gym that isn’t “making” our children’s muscles grow, we’re screwed. We can try this and that but as long as we’re not getting school-ready kids, it will be SSDD.
Truancy is the place to start. Get the kids in school so they have a chance to learn. If the law has to take the parents to task on that, so be it.
And we need a third alternative. Kid attacks teacher…A) try the kid as an adult and punish them severely, or B) he’s just a kid, here’s a slap on the wrist. I think this is primarily a question one for the law, not the school. I say this b/c I know there are already things schools can do, but are reluctant to use.
But this isn’t all about sticks. We can create some programs. E.g. I taught at a middle school where they had an afterschool program. Kids did arts, crafts, whatever: the point was that many parents couldn’t get off work till 5:00. The school was able to provide supervision so that the kids would stay out of trouble, helping out the parents.
I don’t know why we can’t offer parenting classes, like workshops. Honestly, I’d like to see schools as community centers where parents don’t even wait until their kids are in school to start planning. “What you need to know about the terrible twos” ought to be offered for parents at schools, along with “Understanding your child’s addled-essence.” If I had kids, I’d sign up.
Finally, no one thing is going to fix it all. But we have to start someplace…soon.
