There are so many examples about how it doesn’t have to be this way. Success abounds everywhere out of abysmal situations. Katherine Birbalsingh is one to be copied, or at least revered. She didn’t give a shit how everyone bashed her. She went ahead and started a Charter School in one of the poorest regions of the UK. No excuses, and in a few short years her pupils were outperforming private schools across the UK. If she can do it, anyone can https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/what-makes-britains-most-successful-school-tick-interview-headmistress
I appreciate your perspective however after spending 14 years as a math/education advocate, we disagree on a fundamental point. It’s not the system that’s to blame - we both agree it’s broken. Moving forward, what is keeping it from improving, is the parents. They simply do not care to get involved in their children’s schooling, and that is what’s keeping the status quo in place.
I’ve always maintained that if only 5 parents in EVERY School District would speak out against this nonsense, our system would be much better. Instead, parents singularly tend to their child’s educational deficits, which actually makes the system worse.
Children have enough on their plate trying to get through the school day; they shouldn’t need to be advocates at the same time. But until parents get off their comfortable bums and start holding the system to account, no amount of hand wringing will make it better.
No you don't get to blame the parents. I could go on for days with stories about what happens to parents and their kids when they challenge the woke schools. The first sign they are not welcome is they are locked out. They can't even see their own kid without an escort, just like prison. If they express concern abut anything, it often ends with children being removed from public school for their own protection. I have seen children bullied by the coach, the superintendent, even the lunch lady as soon as their parent is labled as "trouble." Kids kicked out of the library because the parent questions a book. A mother threatened with legal action for merely calling the superintendent for an appointment about curriculum. And God forbid a non-woke parent run for school board. All the demons of hell are unleashed upon them until they are pariahs in their town, (the small towns are the worst), and they have to home school their kid and their business suffers. If they win a school board seat they are vandalized, stalked, physically and verbally abused until they either resign or give up and rubber stamp everything. Families are destroyed by fighting the system, but society is destroyed because they don't. Parents KNOW if they dissent, the pain will rain down upon their kids. It is not the parents, it is the system, and all those complicit. If the students were learning to read it would be barely tolerable, but the majority aren't even getting that benefit.
You nailed it. Every family I help I start off with “you’re gonna have to withdraw your kid, so prepare for that now. If you don’t, you, your kid(s), or all of you, will wind up getting arrested at some point.” Because that’s how it is.
I absolutely blame the parents because they and only they, as a collective, drop their kids off everyday at the institution which persecutes their kids. Maybe go back and read my comment in its entirety. You are referring to INDIVIDUAL parents whereas I refer to them as a collective. COLLECTIVELY parents have more power than teachers. COLLECTIVELY they have more power than Superintendents. COLLECTIVELY they have way more power than any State Representative in the country. I’ve been through the Court System, to sue the Province (I live in Canada) when they failed to provide essential services for my kid. INDIVIDUALLY my case didn’t get very far, but what if that was joined by 5, 10, or even 20 parents? You and I both know the outcome may have been different. We know elsewhere in the world parents wouldn’t , and don’t, tolerate such abysmal standards in their schools. School officials know that too, and student achievement reflects that. Just remember when you talk about our “public” system, that’s parents mostly funding the system. And if they can’t be bothered to hold the system to account in a free and democratic manner, ie as a COLLECTIVE, then no amount of hand wringing and whining about the treatment of kids, and individual parents in our schools will ever change. It’s a bitter truth, but there you have it. The public elects our school officials which elects the staff. If you have a problem with the democratic process of the public system then do something to fix it.
I could not disagree with you more about how parents allegedly "collectively" have all this "power." Parents have tried, repeatedly, to use whatever leverage they could possibly get to pressure schools and the elected officials to run them to change course, and at every turn they have been thwarted.
Have you forgotten how powerful UNIONS are? Talk about "collective power!" They aren't elected by parents, but our tax dollars pay their dues and union leader salaries, and they have enormous sway with the politicians we hope to influence. It's a losing battle for us.
Have you forgotten how much the government wants and needs the schools to keep on keeping us OUT of the equation, because they derive so much of their power from the money captured by their monopoly over education and the money that pays for it?
Have you forgotten COVID lockdowns, and how hard parents fought to reopen schools, and how hard unions and politicians fought to keep them closed?
I don't like to fight with my commenters, but your comment is ahistorical, and factually inaccurate as well. The public may elect school board members, but school boards have little to NO power to set school curricula -- that's done at the state board of ed level, and even there, going back at least to the Reagan administration, they look to D.C. to see what if anything they MUST do either b/c Congress has mandated it (IDEA, Title legislation, ESSER, etc...), or what they should do if they want block grants for their states and districts. They also look at the testing standards, especially since 1979, and double that with NCBL and Common Core, again, because the money was tied to the testing. They even set their disciplinary policies based on orders from D.C.! Barack Obama's "disparate impact" BS is why discipline disappeared, and suspensions are so much rarer -- he tired money to the number of suspensions of black and brown students (too many, you don't get the money).
Where do parents fit in to this lovely equation? Please do tell me how we combat those incentives? We don't have any money to pull OUT of these schools, it's TAKEN from us by force whether we like it or not, and whether we even use the g-damn schools or not, and that's the case even for NON-parents, and grandparents! We are talking about nearly $1T each year, state and federal combined, spent on education. Please tell me what our "collective" power is against that?
Better yet, just go ask the parents of TX who overwhelmingly do NOT want the school choice bills to pass, but they have been outspent, outmaneuvered, and even defrauded by their own representatives. What do you propose they do that they haven't done? I know many of these parents personally. They have spent YEARS fighting, hundreds of them -- thousands if you count their grassroots support, not just their activists who go to Austin every chance they get. People have devoted most of their time, giving up livelihoods to fight this mess. They have lost.
So no, I am not going to let you sit here and lecture parents on how much "power" we have, because it's 100% bullshit.
I’m glad I have your attention even if it’s 100% misguided. If you truly believe publicly funded institutions in the US have more power than parents then you are talking about Communism. And as bad as our institutions have become, we are not there yet. All you have listed are EXCUSES. The system exists because of our kids. Not because of lawmakers, Superintendents, or Teachers. KIDS. Without them there’s no money to fund the system. And parents are the gatekeepers to that. So why not boycott the classroom? If the system truly is as bad as you and I and countless others have written about, for decades, why do parents continue to send them to these horrid places? It’s beyond catastrophic. You can sit here and scream into the wind all you want; it’s your column. But pointing your venomous angst on me is wasted energy. You are proving my point about how parents are allowing the system to overrun us because you fail to acknowledge any common ground between us. And that is why the Unions and legislatures and school staff will continue to reign supreme because parents will continue to fail in forming a collective, and will continue to place the trust of their most valued resource, their child, into the hands of those who will destroy it. The general public wouldn’t tolerate a broken justice system or a medical system that no longer works, but it’s quite content to send our future generations to places where they graduate higher numbers of illiterate and innumerate kids every year. Why do YOU insist kids still be a part of that? Yet I’m the enemy for asking parents to boycott it?
PS we are worse than Soviet style communism precisely because we don't know we are oppressed. It's a mishmash of socialism and fascism, with some oligarchy and cronyism mixed in. What we are not anymore is self governing.
Oh we are there. My kids aren't there and that's why, but persuading people to leave a compulsory system they are forced to pay for when people like you keep telling them they have the power to reform it is like truly to stop global warming the sun by putting dust in the air over England (expensive and futile).
Government isn't going to go quietly, nor are they going to let a majority of us go quietly. There are numerous bills already pending aimed at making it harder or illegal outright to homeschool.
My children were FORCED into school by their father after our divorce, just to spite me even though he'd been supportive of homeschooling, and the judge sided with him--status quo didn't count there, nor did their superior test scores. They state ruled on its own favor. The judge literally said "Public school was good enough for MY children."
I am sorry to hear of your personal experience. I’m sure many experience the same. Look, you and I can both agree the system is broken. But the system knows that too, and it preys on educated people like you and I that vent endlessly, blaming all those who are part of the problem. That justifies them asking for even bigger budgets to solve the problem that they themselves helped to create. So then we need to decide what to do about it. YOU are the government. What do you want for your child(ren). And how far are you prepared to go for them? So break the law and homeschool. Or not. It’s your choice. But don’t think for one second you don’t have the power to control your child’s education. Because you’re the only one who can.
PS I’ve been through the Courts because of what the School failed to provide my kid; have you? I was in touch and spoken to thousands of parents, teachers, and grandparents through my advocacy work over the years. Spoken at conferences, parent information seminars and served on 3 parent advisory committees throughout my kids’ schooling years. I know what the situation is; you don’t have to school me on it. Which is why I’m so firm in my belief about how the only way to force change is at the ballot box. That, and boycotting the system. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if the medical community or justice system failed as many kids as our education system does. Because parents wouldn’t tolerate it. But education? They can’t be bothered.
I mentioned this higher in the thread also, but every family I help I start off with “you’re gonna have to withdraw your kid, so prepare for that now. If you don’t, you, your kid(s), or all of you, will wind up getting arrested at some point.” Because that’s how it is.
The other issue that so many forget about is the school has absolute immunity. So they flaunt it, they think they’re entitled to it and they abuse the heck out of it.
It’s not constitutional, and I know one SCOTUS Justice who emphatically believes it’s got to go. But someone has to get there AND ask the right question, or we’re going to continue being stuck with tyrants throughout government, no matter how successful or unsuccessful we are at reforming the monster.
I can't disagree with anything you are saying. Parents feel overwhelmed. They are all working at least one job, they need to count on the schools, so they convince themselves they can. When one stands up and gets clobbered, there is often no one standing by their side.
But that right there is how we let the system get so bad. Schools were once places of learning-and were revered that way. Now they are viewed as little more than babysitting services for parents. They don’t really want to get involved once they drop their kid off for the day because then they’d have to get involved once, and they’re already busy. And who wants to fight with their kid’s teacher anyways, right?
But what if a parent took their kid to the doctor and their kid got sicker because of what the doctor prescribed to them? Would the parents still stand by and do nothing? So why is it that way for their education?
Nothing will change unless parents shift their priorities and place the needs of their child’s education above their babysitting needs. It’s a harsh reality, but this happened on our watch, and now we have to fix it. I disagree with the author in believing the higher ups reign supreme over those who supply the means to making the system function. WE are the government, not the other way around. We only want to believe that statement when things are going well. In times of trouble we prefer to look the other way and scream how things aren’t fair, how others are to blame. Our forefathers would be ashamed.
You have no idea how bad the tyranny had gotten, clearly. Best we can do is convince individuals to leave. The system is evil. It cannot and should not be "reformed." Convincing people this is so is not about convincing them not to need a "babysitter," it's about convincing them everything they've been told about their own inability to educate their own kids or run their own education, is lie. Ever try to get a victim of domestic violence to leave? How about someone with Stockholm syndrome? How about someone who literally can't leave because their state forbids is?
Keep blaming the victims, see how well that works for you. I blame parents for shitty parenting. I don't blame them for shitty schools, not anymore, not knowing what I now know.
Spare me the “you have no idea” claptrap. It’s because I know intimately and precisely how horrific it is that I call on parents to boycott the system. Unlike you I refuse to spend hours of wasted energy wringing my hands, acre into the wind. It gets us nowhere. DO NOT lecture me on how a robust democratic nation, some claim the most democratic in the world, has less power to force change than North Korea, or China. We want the easy life and have forgotten how to fight. We watch Netflix and Facebook rather than actually have conversations with our kids at the dinner table. And above all, we’re afraid to have hard conversations with our kids’ teachers, because we want them to like us.
Until we shift our priorities back on to our kids’ needs, and fight for them in a meaningful manner, others will continue to prey on our parental weakness and take even more power away from us.
I feel like everyone here agrees the system can’t be fixed by parents and Tara is saying the beast must be starved. If I understand correctly she is not blaming parents for not challenging the system, she is blaming them for leaving their kids in it. It seems like every reformer has eventually come to that conclusion. Workable alternatives need to be built. People who are in the thick of reforming are not disrespected, but others have been through that fire and understand the futility.
I left, and I encourage people to leave every day. I have no interest in reforming the system. I accept the system isn’t going away just b/c I think it should, and I’m also realistic enough to realize I’m not going to persuade even a LOT of people to leave it b/c at least half LOVE it as-is, and even when it fails, think it is a moral GOOD, just the fact that it exists. We will NEVER persuade them otherwise, ergo the system will live on. All we can do is hope we aren’t forced into it as the system (like a tumor) fights for its life we are successful in getting a sizable number of people to leave. It will not allow itself to be “starved,” thats’s what “School Choice” is all about: SAVING the tumor’s blood supply.
Thank you. I don’t bring politics into this discussion, but it is interesting there seems to be a movement out of Democratic States into Red States, and where we are now seeing an upward trend of improved student achievement are in Southern States. There’s an interesting article I linked to earlier, which shows how other States are capitalizing on Mississippi’s success. Maybe it just had to get that much worse before everyone said, “enough”.
I’m sorry I misunderstood your first post, but it did lead to some lively discussion. Nebraska is between deep red Iowa and deep blue Colorado. The Nebraska state house is schizophrenic. The state board of education is 4-4. The reading scores are abysmal. We have to keep fighting for the system right now because it isn’t completely lost. But at the same time, every student that leaves the system is a good thing. The battle right now is to keep “mental health” out of the schools. Nebraska adopts every trend a decade after it has failed everywhere else.
Well I think the first piece "makes sense," I was just responding to someone who commented on the re-stack taking the piece personally without having read it (clearly). So, to fend off more of the same, I wrote the second piece.
Can't please all the people all of the time, but I can make sure people who only read headlines don't dissuade other people from reading an article.
The truth is, they both "make sense," and my second piece isn't aimed at letting parents off the hook for the behaviors iterated in the first piece. We are ultimately responsible for our own behavior, no matter what our conditioning. I'm just making the point that millions of parents didn't just suddenly become hyper-vigilant and mistrustful.
There are so many examples about how it doesn’t have to be this way. Success abounds everywhere out of abysmal situations. Katherine Birbalsingh is one to be copied, or at least revered. She didn’t give a shit how everyone bashed her. She went ahead and started a Charter School in one of the poorest regions of the UK. No excuses, and in a few short years her pupils were outperforming private schools across the UK. If she can do it, anyone can https://fordhaminstitute.org/national/commentary/what-makes-britains-most-successful-school-tick-interview-headmistress
I appreciate your perspective however after spending 14 years as a math/education advocate, we disagree on a fundamental point. It’s not the system that’s to blame - we both agree it’s broken. Moving forward, what is keeping it from improving, is the parents. They simply do not care to get involved in their children’s schooling, and that is what’s keeping the status quo in place.
I’ve always maintained that if only 5 parents in EVERY School District would speak out against this nonsense, our system would be much better. Instead, parents singularly tend to their child’s educational deficits, which actually makes the system worse.
Children have enough on their plate trying to get through the school day; they shouldn’t need to be advocates at the same time. But until parents get off their comfortable bums and start holding the system to account, no amount of hand wringing will make it better.
No you don't get to blame the parents. I could go on for days with stories about what happens to parents and their kids when they challenge the woke schools. The first sign they are not welcome is they are locked out. They can't even see their own kid without an escort, just like prison. If they express concern abut anything, it often ends with children being removed from public school for their own protection. I have seen children bullied by the coach, the superintendent, even the lunch lady as soon as their parent is labled as "trouble." Kids kicked out of the library because the parent questions a book. A mother threatened with legal action for merely calling the superintendent for an appointment about curriculum. And God forbid a non-woke parent run for school board. All the demons of hell are unleashed upon them until they are pariahs in their town, (the small towns are the worst), and they have to home school their kid and their business suffers. If they win a school board seat they are vandalized, stalked, physically and verbally abused until they either resign or give up and rubber stamp everything. Families are destroyed by fighting the system, but society is destroyed because they don't. Parents KNOW if they dissent, the pain will rain down upon their kids. It is not the parents, it is the system, and all those complicit. If the students were learning to read it would be barely tolerable, but the majority aren't even getting that benefit.
You nailed it. Every family I help I start off with “you’re gonna have to withdraw your kid, so prepare for that now. If you don’t, you, your kid(s), or all of you, will wind up getting arrested at some point.” Because that’s how it is.
I absolutely blame the parents because they and only they, as a collective, drop their kids off everyday at the institution which persecutes their kids. Maybe go back and read my comment in its entirety. You are referring to INDIVIDUAL parents whereas I refer to them as a collective. COLLECTIVELY parents have more power than teachers. COLLECTIVELY they have more power than Superintendents. COLLECTIVELY they have way more power than any State Representative in the country. I’ve been through the Court System, to sue the Province (I live in Canada) when they failed to provide essential services for my kid. INDIVIDUALLY my case didn’t get very far, but what if that was joined by 5, 10, or even 20 parents? You and I both know the outcome may have been different. We know elsewhere in the world parents wouldn’t , and don’t, tolerate such abysmal standards in their schools. School officials know that too, and student achievement reflects that. Just remember when you talk about our “public” system, that’s parents mostly funding the system. And if they can’t be bothered to hold the system to account in a free and democratic manner, ie as a COLLECTIVE, then no amount of hand wringing and whining about the treatment of kids, and individual parents in our schools will ever change. It’s a bitter truth, but there you have it. The public elects our school officials which elects the staff. If you have a problem with the democratic process of the public system then do something to fix it.
I could not disagree with you more about how parents allegedly "collectively" have all this "power." Parents have tried, repeatedly, to use whatever leverage they could possibly get to pressure schools and the elected officials to run them to change course, and at every turn they have been thwarted.
Have you forgotten how powerful UNIONS are? Talk about "collective power!" They aren't elected by parents, but our tax dollars pay their dues and union leader salaries, and they have enormous sway with the politicians we hope to influence. It's a losing battle for us.
Have you forgotten how much the government wants and needs the schools to keep on keeping us OUT of the equation, because they derive so much of their power from the money captured by their monopoly over education and the money that pays for it?
Have you forgotten COVID lockdowns, and how hard parents fought to reopen schools, and how hard unions and politicians fought to keep them closed?
I don't like to fight with my commenters, but your comment is ahistorical, and factually inaccurate as well. The public may elect school board members, but school boards have little to NO power to set school curricula -- that's done at the state board of ed level, and even there, going back at least to the Reagan administration, they look to D.C. to see what if anything they MUST do either b/c Congress has mandated it (IDEA, Title legislation, ESSER, etc...), or what they should do if they want block grants for their states and districts. They also look at the testing standards, especially since 1979, and double that with NCBL and Common Core, again, because the money was tied to the testing. They even set their disciplinary policies based on orders from D.C.! Barack Obama's "disparate impact" BS is why discipline disappeared, and suspensions are so much rarer -- he tired money to the number of suspensions of black and brown students (too many, you don't get the money).
Where do parents fit in to this lovely equation? Please do tell me how we combat those incentives? We don't have any money to pull OUT of these schools, it's TAKEN from us by force whether we like it or not, and whether we even use the g-damn schools or not, and that's the case even for NON-parents, and grandparents! We are talking about nearly $1T each year, state and federal combined, spent on education. Please tell me what our "collective" power is against that?
Better yet, just go ask the parents of TX who overwhelmingly do NOT want the school choice bills to pass, but they have been outspent, outmaneuvered, and even defrauded by their own representatives. What do you propose they do that they haven't done? I know many of these parents personally. They have spent YEARS fighting, hundreds of them -- thousands if you count their grassroots support, not just their activists who go to Austin every chance they get. People have devoted most of their time, giving up livelihoods to fight this mess. They have lost.
So no, I am not going to let you sit here and lecture parents on how much "power" we have, because it's 100% bullshit.
I’m glad I have your attention even if it’s 100% misguided. If you truly believe publicly funded institutions in the US have more power than parents then you are talking about Communism. And as bad as our institutions have become, we are not there yet. All you have listed are EXCUSES. The system exists because of our kids. Not because of lawmakers, Superintendents, or Teachers. KIDS. Without them there’s no money to fund the system. And parents are the gatekeepers to that. So why not boycott the classroom? If the system truly is as bad as you and I and countless others have written about, for decades, why do parents continue to send them to these horrid places? It’s beyond catastrophic. You can sit here and scream into the wind all you want; it’s your column. But pointing your venomous angst on me is wasted energy. You are proving my point about how parents are allowing the system to overrun us because you fail to acknowledge any common ground between us. And that is why the Unions and legislatures and school staff will continue to reign supreme because parents will continue to fail in forming a collective, and will continue to place the trust of their most valued resource, their child, into the hands of those who will destroy it. The general public wouldn’t tolerate a broken justice system or a medical system that no longer works, but it’s quite content to send our future generations to places where they graduate higher numbers of illiterate and innumerate kids every year. Why do YOU insist kids still be a part of that? Yet I’m the enemy for asking parents to boycott it?
PS we are worse than Soviet style communism precisely because we don't know we are oppressed. It's a mishmash of socialism and fascism, with some oligarchy and cronyism mixed in. What we are not anymore is self governing.
That’s bullshit and you know it. You Ideology does a huge disservice to those who fought their way to escape the madness of Stalin’s purges. Grow up.
Oh we are there. My kids aren't there and that's why, but persuading people to leave a compulsory system they are forced to pay for when people like you keep telling them they have the power to reform it is like truly to stop global warming the sun by putting dust in the air over England (expensive and futile).
Government isn't going to go quietly, nor are they going to let a majority of us go quietly. There are numerous bills already pending aimed at making it harder or illegal outright to homeschool.
My children were FORCED into school by their father after our divorce, just to spite me even though he'd been supportive of homeschooling, and the judge sided with him--status quo didn't count there, nor did their superior test scores. They state ruled on its own favor. The judge literally said "Public school was good enough for MY children."
I am sorry to hear of your personal experience. I’m sure many experience the same. Look, you and I can both agree the system is broken. But the system knows that too, and it preys on educated people like you and I that vent endlessly, blaming all those who are part of the problem. That justifies them asking for even bigger budgets to solve the problem that they themselves helped to create. So then we need to decide what to do about it. YOU are the government. What do you want for your child(ren). And how far are you prepared to go for them? So break the law and homeschool. Or not. It’s your choice. But don’t think for one second you don’t have the power to control your child’s education. Because you’re the only one who can.
PS I’ve been through the Courts because of what the School failed to provide my kid; have you? I was in touch and spoken to thousands of parents, teachers, and grandparents through my advocacy work over the years. Spoken at conferences, parent information seminars and served on 3 parent advisory committees throughout my kids’ schooling years. I know what the situation is; you don’t have to school me on it. Which is why I’m so firm in my belief about how the only way to force change is at the ballot box. That, and boycotting the system. We wouldn’t be having this conversation if the medical community or justice system failed as many kids as our education system does. Because parents wouldn’t tolerate it. But education? They can’t be bothered.
I mentioned this higher in the thread also, but every family I help I start off with “you’re gonna have to withdraw your kid, so prepare for that now. If you don’t, you, your kid(s), or all of you, will wind up getting arrested at some point.” Because that’s how it is.
The other issue that so many forget about is the school has absolute immunity. So they flaunt it, they think they’re entitled to it and they abuse the heck out of it.
It’s not constitutional, and I know one SCOTUS Justice who emphatically believes it’s got to go. But someone has to get there AND ask the right question, or we’re going to continue being stuck with tyrants throughout government, no matter how successful or unsuccessful we are at reforming the monster.
And yet parents continue to send their kids there.
I am not one of them.
So how does that work when Texas schools have absolute immunity from suit? 🤔 and there are no class action suits here, either.
I can't disagree with anything you are saying. Parents feel overwhelmed. They are all working at least one job, they need to count on the schools, so they convince themselves they can. When one stands up and gets clobbered, there is often no one standing by their side.
But that right there is how we let the system get so bad. Schools were once places of learning-and were revered that way. Now they are viewed as little more than babysitting services for parents. They don’t really want to get involved once they drop their kid off for the day because then they’d have to get involved once, and they’re already busy. And who wants to fight with their kid’s teacher anyways, right?
But what if a parent took their kid to the doctor and their kid got sicker because of what the doctor prescribed to them? Would the parents still stand by and do nothing? So why is it that way for their education?
Nothing will change unless parents shift their priorities and place the needs of their child’s education above their babysitting needs. It’s a harsh reality, but this happened on our watch, and now we have to fix it. I disagree with the author in believing the higher ups reign supreme over those who supply the means to making the system function. WE are the government, not the other way around. We only want to believe that statement when things are going well. In times of trouble we prefer to look the other way and scream how things aren’t fair, how others are to blame. Our forefathers would be ashamed.
You have no idea how bad the tyranny had gotten, clearly. Best we can do is convince individuals to leave. The system is evil. It cannot and should not be "reformed." Convincing people this is so is not about convincing them not to need a "babysitter," it's about convincing them everything they've been told about their own inability to educate their own kids or run their own education, is lie. Ever try to get a victim of domestic violence to leave? How about someone with Stockholm syndrome? How about someone who literally can't leave because their state forbids is?
Keep blaming the victims, see how well that works for you. I blame parents for shitty parenting. I don't blame them for shitty schools, not anymore, not knowing what I now know.
Spare me the “you have no idea” claptrap. It’s because I know intimately and precisely how horrific it is that I call on parents to boycott the system. Unlike you I refuse to spend hours of wasted energy wringing my hands, acre into the wind. It gets us nowhere. DO NOT lecture me on how a robust democratic nation, some claim the most democratic in the world, has less power to force change than North Korea, or China. We want the easy life and have forgotten how to fight. We watch Netflix and Facebook rather than actually have conversations with our kids at the dinner table. And above all, we’re afraid to have hard conversations with our kids’ teachers, because we want them to like us.
Until we shift our priorities back on to our kids’ needs, and fight for them in a meaningful manner, others will continue to prey on our parental weakness and take even more power away from us.
I feel like everyone here agrees the system can’t be fixed by parents and Tara is saying the beast must be starved. If I understand correctly she is not blaming parents for not challenging the system, she is blaming them for leaving their kids in it. It seems like every reformer has eventually come to that conclusion. Workable alternatives need to be built. People who are in the thick of reforming are not disrespected, but others have been through that fire and understand the futility.
I left, and I encourage people to leave every day. I have no interest in reforming the system. I accept the system isn’t going away just b/c I think it should, and I’m also realistic enough to realize I’m not going to persuade even a LOT of people to leave it b/c at least half LOVE it as-is, and even when it fails, think it is a moral GOOD, just the fact that it exists. We will NEVER persuade them otherwise, ergo the system will live on. All we can do is hope we aren’t forced into it as the system (like a tumor) fights for its life we are successful in getting a sizable number of people to leave. It will not allow itself to be “starved,” thats’s what “School Choice” is all about: SAVING the tumor’s blood supply.
Thank you. I don’t bring politics into this discussion, but it is interesting there seems to be a movement out of Democratic States into Red States, and where we are now seeing an upward trend of improved student achievement are in Southern States. There’s an interesting article I linked to earlier, which shows how other States are capitalizing on Mississippi’s success. Maybe it just had to get that much worse before everyone said, “enough”.
I’m sorry I misunderstood your first post, but it did lead to some lively discussion. Nebraska is between deep red Iowa and deep blue Colorado. The Nebraska state house is schizophrenic. The state board of education is 4-4. The reading scores are abysmal. We have to keep fighting for the system right now because it isn’t completely lost. But at the same time, every student that leaves the system is a good thing. The battle right now is to keep “mental health” out of the schools. Nebraska adopts every trend a decade after it has failed everywhere else.
Well I think the first piece "makes sense," I was just responding to someone who commented on the re-stack taking the piece personally without having read it (clearly). So, to fend off more of the same, I wrote the second piece.
Can't please all the people all of the time, but I can make sure people who only read headlines don't dissuade other people from reading an article.
The truth is, they both "make sense," and my second piece isn't aimed at letting parents off the hook for the behaviors iterated in the first piece. We are ultimately responsible for our own behavior, no matter what our conditioning. I'm just making the point that millions of parents didn't just suddenly become hyper-vigilant and mistrustful.