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Parents Think Schools Are A-OK
With President Obama’s big “controversial” speech on education this week (because “stay in school, work hard, and wash your hands are really hot-button issues) and the first day of school coming this week for most kids, the state of America’s schools is on a lot of people’s minds.
According to a report from Public Agenda, it turns out that what education reformers and bureaucrats think the big issues facing schools are not, in fact, what parents and educator themselves think of as the issues. Highlight of the report include:
Parents and educators both think school culture is the biggest issue facing schools. Almost three quarters of parents and 89 percent of teachers think that the biggest problems facing high schools are social and behavioral rather than academic.
Parents also believe their children will be well prepared for college and work, despite growing concerns from colleges that students are coming in unprepared.
While parents still strongly support testing and academic standards, most parents don’t see overly low standards as a problem.
And despite decades of hand-wringing about American students falling behind their global peers on science and math, most parents think science and math education is just fine.
Now, I’m not sure if this is reflective of parents being too complacent or education bureaucrats being out of touch, or a little of both. What do you think?
Related Posts:
They Say: Quit Complaining, People Like Their Kid’s Schools
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0 Comments
Lucky commented on Sep 11 09 at 3:01 pmI think it’s a little of both. I don’t think parents are being intentionally complacent I think they just don’t realize what’s really expected to get places today. I also think politicians sensationalize everything and then the media magnifies it.
ChiLaura commented on Sep 12 09 at 10:05 amI can’t help but think that these parents suffered from poor education as well, and are just deluded. Do all these parents think that their own educations were sufficient? I know that I received a great English lit and comp education, as well as science, but math and civics/history in my school were sub-par at best. Has anyone here lately read a composition from an average college student? It borders on unreadable. And getting to law school and grad school with these sorts of problems borders on inexcusable. I think that the average school social experience sucks, but I don’t consider socialization to be the school’s job, either.
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