Archive for the 'Parents' Category

Close Only Counts in Horseshoes…and School Choice?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 14, 2009 in Education Theory, Parents and Research and Reports. 12 Comments

Why do parents enroll children in underperforming schools when there appear to be better choices nearby?   For some, transportation may be a dealbreaker,  according to a new survey by the University of Washington’s Center on Reinventing Public Education posted by EdWeek’s Debra Viadero:

The results suggest that transportation is especially challenging for low-income families, 45 percent of whom do not own cars, or who own vehicles that are unreliable. According to the survey, one third of those families said they did not enroll their child in the school they preferred due to transportation difficulties.

Dan Willingham recently unpacked one of the paradoxes surrounding school choice over at Britannica Blog with his patented cog sci spin.  In particular, he takes issue with the argument that choice will improve the overall quality of education, since parents would not knowingly send their kids to “bad” schools.   Yet they do it all the time.   “Why should we expect people to make rational decisions about their child’s schooling,” Willingham notes, “when they don’t make rational decisions in other complex arenas?”

I can imagine an advocate saying ‘But the real point is that it’s the parent’s choice. If they want to send their kid to a mediocre school because it’s close to the home, that’s their business.’ Fair enough, but that is a different argument. We are no longer debating whether choice will improve schools but about philosophy of governance. What happens if parents do not make sensible educational choices for their children?  We don’t let parents choose not to educate their children—there are truancy laws. Should society intervene if parents send their child to a school that the parents ought to know is terrible? And are we, as a society, going to allow people to make poor choices for which there is a collective cost? Perhaps this is the educational equivalent of letting people choose to drive without wearing a seatbelt.

When I taught in the South Bronx, I routinely (and quietly) encouraged dozens of families to enter their children in the lottery for the KIPP school less than a half a mile away, but few ever did.  Meanwhile, the massive and dangerous middle school across the street was the top choice of students leaving my school.   Granted, there were three basic flavors of middle school in the neighborhood : bad, worse, and abandon-all-hope-ye-who-enter-here   Still, to Willingham’s point, a disproportionate number made what I perceived to be the worst possible choice.  The one thing it had going for it was proximity.

Update: Jay Greene wanders into the fray at his blog and in the comments below.

Bad Scores, Good School?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on July 1, 2009 in Educational Policy and Parents. 8 Comments

Is it possible to get a good education in a school with bad test scores?  Or are parents merely incapable of seeing a bad school for what it really is?  “Many parents of children in academically struggling schools still believe their child is getting a fine education,” notes the Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s education columnist Maureen Downey. ”They are either unfazed by the lackluster test scores or unaware of them.” 

What they notice — and what they value — is that their 10-year-old son’s artwork hangs in the school hallway or their 15-year-old daughter marches on the field with the band on Friday nights. Parents talk about how hard the teachers work, regardless of how the school’s test scores rank with other schools across the state. They feel their children are accepted and encouraged.

Downey, who has been cranking out thoughtful and provocative ed pieces for the AJC for much of the past year, cites data from the National Education Longitudinal Study, which noted “a disconnect between actual student performance and parental satisfaction…especially among parents of low-achieving students and students attending schools in high-poverty neighborhoods.”

 “The state may say our school is failing, but it’s not failing my child,” one parent tells Downey, who also notes that “as states encourage the creation of still more charter schools, parental satisfaction will become more important.”

 

Parents, Prudence and Paranoia

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 24, 2009 in No category and Parents. 4 Comments

Every now and then, you read a story that makes you wonder if you’ve been living in a cave.   If this piece in Teusday’s Baltimore Sun is any indication, selling devices to parents afraid of getting separated from their children has become a big business.

GPS tracking devices with wander alerts emit beeps or vibrations when a child strays too far. Digital watches and apparel have high-decibel alarms. And there’s the SafetyTat, a waterproof tattoo created by a Baltimore-area mom who wanted to attach her phone number to her child; a half-million have been sold.

Half a million??!?  How did I manage to miss all the tatted-up tykes wandering the streets?  The takeaway:  Sex sells.  Paranoia sells more.  Two predictions:  1.  Somewhere a school or district will pass a rule requiring students get tattoed before they go on field trips.  2.  Someone will post a comment telling me it’s already been happening.

“The Year of the Bad Teacher”

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 23, 2009 in Parents and Teaching. 2 Comments

Wall Street Journal blogger Sue Shellenbarger asks what’s a parent supposed to do when a child’s teacher is a rotten apple?  And how do you know?  Her children had many more good teachers than bad in public schools.  But she describes a “dark chapter” in her family’s life–the year of the bad teacher:

Unknown to me, the teacher singled out my daughter for ridicule for her offbeat clothing choices.  The teacher also made her a target of frequent criticism for the ideas she tried to bring up in class. The big picture was no better; students in the class made poor progress in reading and arithmetic….I should have realized far sooner that my daughter had been dealt a losing card. But my daughter said nothing. I was concerned that her interest in school seemed to dip that year, but she internalized most of her distress, blaming herself, she finally told me years later. Meanwhile, this teacher had a great reputation among parents. She had a warm, hip façade; she knew how to meet-and-greet, and she always behaved well when I volunteered in the classroom. We live and learn.

In this case, she writes, the system works.  The teacher was pressured by the principal to depart and is no longer teaching.  Still, parents are unaware until too late, she notes, that their children have been dealt a losing hand.  Most of the commenters on the WSJ tend to agree.  One teacher, writes one, ”berated and humiliated my child in front of her class to the point where I later discovered “How to Commit Suicide Painlessly” websites on her laptop.  My child admitted it was the teacher who pushed her to the edge.”

Obesity and Belligerence

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 17, 2009 in Education News and Parents. 2 Comments

“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Barry Goldwater never met MeMe Roth.  The New York Times (HT: Joanne Jacobs) has a piece about the Upper West Side Manhattan mother who is waging war on junk food in her child’s school.  But it’s not the school lunches that have MeMe’s knickers in a knot.

What sets her off is the junk food served on special occasions: the cupcakes that come out for every birthday, the doughnuts her children were once given in gym, the sugary “Fun-Dip” packets that some parent provided the whole class on Valentine’s Day…When offered any food at school other than the school lunch, Ms. Roth’s children — who shall go nameless since it seems they have enough on, or off, their plates — are instructed to deposit the item into a piece of Tupperware their mother calls a “junk food collector.”

Ms. Roth, who runs a group called National Action Against Obesity, has something of a record on this issue.  “The police were called to a Y.M.C.A. in 2007 when she absconded with the sprinkles and syrups on a table where members were being served ice cream,” notes the Times’ Susan Dominus.  ”That was Ms. Roth who called Santa Claus fat on television that Christmas, and she has a continuing campaign against the humble Girl Scout cookies, on the premise that no community activity should promote unhealthy eating.”

When the Roths lived in Millburn, New Jersey, MeMe (Me! Me!) waged a similar campaign against bagels and Pringles in school lunches leading to an e-mail from a PTA member that counseled “Please, consider moving.”   Sounds like P.S. 9 is thinking the same thing.   School safety officials have reportedly suggested the Roths request a health and safety transfer.

A commenter on the Times’ message board sums up the issue neatly and economically:  “Obesity is unhealthy. And so is belligerence.”

In the Wee Small Hours

Published by Robert Pondiscio on June 9, 2009 in Parents and Research and Reports. 11 Comments

An NIH study of over 15,000 teenagers shows a link between sleep and mental health.  “Teens whose parents let them stay up after midnight on weeknights have a much higher chance of being depressed or suicidal than teens whose parents enforce an earlier bedtime,” notes USA Today’s Greg Toppo. 

The findings are the first to examine bedtimes’ effects on kids’ mental health — and the results are noteworthy. Middle- and high-schoolers whose parents don’t require them to be in bed before midnight on school nights are 42% more likely to be depressed than teens whose parents require a 10 p.m. or earlier bedtime. And teens who are allowed to stay up late are 30% more likely to have had suicidal thoughts in the past year.  The differences are smaller but still significant — 25% and 20%, respectively — after controlling for age, sex, race and ethnicity.

Going to bed after midnight on weeknights reportedly increases the risk of depression by 42%.  The lead researcher, Columbia University Medical Center’s James Gangwisch, says the takeaway for parents is “try as much as possible to sell teenagers on the importance of getting enough sleep.”

Hey, it’s his study, but I have to wonder: Perhaps the difference-maker isn’t the sleep, but having a bedtime?  Is it possible that parents who set rules and routines for their children such asregular bedtimes are more involved in their kids’ lives?  Maybe their kids are less likely to feel adrift and depressed as a result.

 

 

Eduspeak Is Canned, Not Candid

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 29, 2009 in Education Practice, Parents and Teaching. 13 Comments

Candor and straight talk are rare in education, and euphemisms abound, observes Maureen Downey, the education columnist for the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.  At one level, the jargon can be amusing, such as the habit of referring to one of the buildings at her son’s school as the cottage. “Personally, I would describe the place where fifth-graders attend class as a trailer,” Downey writes. ”But then, I’m not an education professional.”   More seriously, she notes that happy talk and edubabble contribute to parental mistrust of schools.

My husband and I once had a 10-minute sidewalk chat with a school consultant working at a local elementary school. After a conversation about psychometrics, scaffolding, formative assessments and zone of proximal development, we walked away asking one another, “What was she saying?”  The use of education jargon serves as a defense mechanism, to keep parents at bay and to establish from the onset who is the expert and who is the amateur. It becomes a way to silence questions and squelch opposition.

Downey wonders if ”beleaguered and scapegoated” educators can afford to be honest and forthcoming.  ”If principals admit to unhappy parents that a new teacher is not proving effective,” she points out, ”they may also have to tell those parents that they’re stuck with the teacher anyway, since it’s not an easy task to replace staff midyear.”

What’s My Motivation?

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 22, 2009 in Education News and Parents. 4 Comments

Teaching middle school students that academic performance is a key to their future job prospects is more important to student achievement than helping kids with their homework, according to a new study.   “Instilling the value of education and linking school work to future goals is what this age group needs to excel in school, more than parents’ helping with homework or showing up at school,” lead researcher Nancy E. Hill, PhD, of Harvard University tells Science Daily. She examined 50 studies with more than 50,000 students over a 26-year period looking at what kinds of parent involvement helped children’s academic achievement.

I clearly recall my late father making sure he instilled in his son the value of education. And the links he established between school and future job prospects were clear and unambiguous:

“Get your @#$%! to school!  Do you want to be a #$%@! bum your whole life?

Does that count?

Stop Global Dimming!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 20, 2009 in Parents. 5 Comments

At Kitchen Table Math, blogger SteveH finds himself irritated by the community service requirement at his son’s high school, and its heavy-handedness.  His son was asked to play piano at a meeting by a teacher who offered him “a letter of community service” for his trouble.  “My first reaction was irritation. My son would (should) make the decision without that carrot dangling in front of him,” he writes. “I don’t want my son always looking for an angle or for something to go on his resume.”

Comments on the blog from other parents offer a glimpse of just how common “service learning” has become.  Student Service Learning is a high school graduation requirement in Maryland, one parent notes.  Another points out community service is part of the International Baccalaureate program.  Then there’s this mom’s novel response to an assignment requiring each child to “choose a public activity to raise awareness” of an environmental problem:

We (yes, we, these are projects that require massive amounts of parental energy) chose “global dimming.” (My kids’ dad joked that there seems to be a lot of that happening in education these days.) For our public activity we decided to make a sign “Stop Global Dimming” and stand on a busy street corner (right next to “The End is Near Guy”–no, not really but I wish he had been there!). It was quite an experience although not necessarily what the teacher was looking for I suppose…I’m just glad we didn’t get locked up.

SteveH remarks all of this compulsory volunteerism makes him feel like Oliver North’s lawyer Brendan Sullivan, who famously quipped ”I’m not a potted plant.  I’m here as the lawyer. That’s my job” when members of Congress complained he was objecting too much to their questions.  

“That’s how I feel,” he writes. “I’m not a potted plant. I’m here as the parent. That’s my job.”

Morning Sickness? Lucky You!

Published by Robert Pondiscio on May 20, 2009 in Parents and Research and Reports. 2 Comments

Women who suffer morning sickness during pregnancy may be more likely to have a child with a high IQ.  Even worse (or maybe not) a study reported by The Journal of Paediatrics shows that severe morning sickness is a “significant predictor of higher scores.” 

“Our findings suggest an association between morning sickness and improved neurodevelopment in the offspring,” says Dr Irena Nulman, of The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Canada.  Britain’s Daily Telegraph notes previous studies have suggested an early protective benefit of morning sickness, however the long-term effects had not been directly investigated before.

“I guess that’s a small comfort if you’re feeling really sick,” notes Laura Vanderkam at Gifted Exchange.  I predict an outbreak of bragging in the form of complaints among the competitive parent set.  “Oh, I can’t believe how sick I was this morning…”