What Parents Want for Education Policy

[eridani]

http://www.nationofchange.org/what-parents-want-education-policy-1374672530

When politicians make the case that parents, rather than professional educators, should run schools, they reinforce the idea that when education is the issue at hand, the only “adults” who matter are parents, and the interests of teachers are misaligned to the well-being of students.

So what do parents want?

A revealing new study indicates that parents don’t want what the education reform crowd is selling. Not at all.

First reported in The Washington Post, the survey, conducted by the American Federation of Teachers, found that “counter the argument made by those pushing policy changes that parents want more choice in deciding where to send their children and a market-based approach to education,” what parents really want is more aligned with what teachers have been saying all along.”

Much like teachers, most parents (61 percent) oppose closing low-performing schools and reassigning students to a different school. They – “more than three out of every four” – are against “reducing compensation for teachers or cutting resources for the classroom while increasing spending on charter schools.” They tend (56 percent) to oppose “giving tax dollars to families to pay for private school tuition.”


Most parents say “too much learning in the classroom has been sacrificed in order to accommodate state tests during the school year.” And, like teachers, they believe that “layoffs and a high turnover of teachers; closing schools in major cities; reducing art and music instruction to focus on math and reading; increasing class sizes; and cutting school budgets have had a negative effect on public schools.”

[chervilant]

1. I'd bet they want Gates and Rhee

(and their ilk) OUT of public education.

[southernyankeebelle]

2. I don't know what parents can do anymore. Politicans aren't listening to the people.

We need to get back to public school education. These charter schools are ruining public education. It isn't fair kids aren't getting an equal education anymore. It's like they want to keep kids down so they can have plenty of low wage earners. It's sickening that children whose parents are in low wage jobs really don't have a chance to get out of it because of the education system. If kids aren't getting equal education then we are all losing. There really is 2 americas now. I worry for my granddaughter and her future.

[LWolf]

4. Parents, teachers, and EVERYONE opposed to the current regime

can put education higher on their priority lists and stop voting for politicians who support the current deforms, regardless of what party they hail from.

I know that I pointed out BO's dangerous position on education back in the '08 primaries, when he said Republicans were better on education than Democrats, and was promptly buried by people who didn't think it was important.

[southernyankeebelle]

5. your right when it comes to education. O is no better.

[duffyduff]

7. O is an "F" on education

He is way worse than Bush.

[southernyankeebelle]

8. I don't know Bush family are really into selling the books.

[Starry Messenger]

3. I've thought this for awhile

People aren't dumb.

[Igel]

6. So what they're saying is that parents are reasonably satisfied.

But more money should be spent on their kids--both on teachers and in the classroom for materials (etc.)--and not on others.

Oddly, though, this also works for parents at failing schools. The kids who don't pass their tests, the kids at schools that show a severe "achievement gap" with others ... spend more money, but the parents are satisfied.

The poll, I'm sorry to say, has some good points. But one of them is to ask questions that, if answered by most people, are going to confirm what the union wants. More money for teachers and more money in the classroom.

Sorry. American education isn't as broken as some say, but neither is it as good as the poll would lead us to infer. While more money would be nice, it's not the main problem in American education. Neither, sad to say, is the over-emphasis on testing and "rigor."

Testing and rigor are just a reaction to the blueberries that parents send us when considered in the iight of what experts and employers say our workforce needs are and what colleges say is needed for optimum college readiness. When testing and rigor doesn't succeed in the public schools, we look at what we're allowed to assign blame to and decide that it has to be the schools.