Family Matters
The truth is, America doesn't have a crisis in schooling, it has something much worse: a crisis in child-rearing.
Outside the conference center, the air was crisp and clear, the vistas long and lovely. Inside, the atmosphere was thick with frustration, the views bleak and bitter. Executives and staff members from foundations that underwrite education reform had gathered with consultants and trainers funded by their grants to assess progress in the participating schools. The results were deeply discouraging. Test scores weren't rising, the achievement gap wasn't closing. Almost unanimously, those attending blamed the educators who were the beneficiaries (and targets) of their generosity and expertise. Principals were out of their depth and lacked vision; how could we improve their "skill sets"? Teachers were resistant and didn't care about kids; how could we get them to "reinvest"?
Listening, I thought of the educators I had met earlier that week: a 4th grade teacher whose urban school has a 60 percent turnover among students each year; a middle school guidance counselor coping with an outbreak of oral sex among 7th graders; a high school principal berated and sued by parents whose son he had expelled for selling drugs at school. I had a palpable sense of the disconnect between those outside schools who press accountability and innovation and those inside who must deliver results, and I realized, yet again, that this disconnect—and the core dilemmas of school improvement—begin not at school, but at home.
When it was my turn to speak, I asked how many of us in the room were former teachers. Barely half, including me. How many would want to be a career teacher or administrator right now? None, including me. Why not? The answers were predictable. They were the same ones educators give when asked why they're leaving the field, retiring early, or not applying for principalships; the same ones the participants had dismissed earlier as "excuses for inaction": the endless parade of changes that don't last; the constant criticism; the relentless focus on test scores; the excesses of special education; and—repeatedly, as we went around the room—the sharp declines in the behavior, attitudes, and values of both...
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