Another bite at parents pulling the trigger on schools
Those of you following the “trigger law” story should take a look at an article from today’s Washington Post, which describes the fight at Desert Trails Elementary school in Adelanto, California in more detail than I’ve seen before.
From the article:
“We just decided we needed to do something for our children,” said Doreen Diaz, a parent organizing the trigger effort. “If we don’t stand up and speak for them, their future is lost.”
Her daughter attends Desert Trails Elementary, where last year two-thirds of the children failed the state reading exam, more than half were not proficient in math, and nearly 80 percent failed the science exam. The school has not met state standards for six years, and scores place it in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide.
And from the other side:
In recent weeks, a group of parents opposed to the trigger has formed, with help from the California Teachers Association, the state’s largest teachers union.
“We all agree we’d like to see some improvements, but would you rather blow everything up, start from scratch and hope for better?” asked Lori Yuan, who has two children at Desert Trails and is fighting the trigger. “That doesn’t sound very good to me.”
At any rate, if you’re interested in this issue, you will want to check this out. Here’s the link:
I feel that the problem with education lies mostly with the parents. They come home tired at the end of the day. Instead of escaping into the television, they could escape into helping their children with their homework and eat off of paper plates.
I agree that parental involvement is lacking and not what it used to be. However, though it is tempting to shift blame onto the parents, as educators, we must hold ourselves responsible for our students’ success. Parents are not asked to be the professionals with the skill sets to educate their children with the knowledge needed to be successful in today’s society–we as educators are the trained professionals, we are the paid public-servants who enlisted in this most noble of professions to make college and career readiness a reality for ALL our students regardless of socioeconomic status, ethnicity, gender or any other external variable.