“Good families make good schools,” writes Saul Cooperman in this Education Week Commentary. Without adequate family support for learning, he argues, students will not achieve their academic potential, no matter the quality of their school. This is why some of the country’s highest-spending school districts, equipped with well-paid teachers and manageable class sizes, still have surprisingly high dropout rates and large numbers of students who don’t pass graduation tests, according to Cooperman.
What do you think? Is the disconnect between home and school an insurmountable roadblock to higher achievement? Is reform focused too much on the school itself, and not enough on conditions outside it?
