Lessons in Public Education

Robert Kelly column: Lessons in Public Education, Part 5 of 5:

Waiting for a miracle

If an average score of 1600 (perfection) on the SATs is perfection, Massachusetts earns a grade of 63 percent.

Newton, the most successful school district examined in these essays during the past month, wins a mark of 74 percent; Lynn, the least successful, 55 percent.

In this touch-feely era, some educators might prefer to make Newton the model, and declare its SAT average perfection or 100 percent, which would immediately transform the averages for Massachusetts and Lynn to 86 percent and 75 percent respectively.

Presto! The problem disappears. Nobody is embarrassed. Everybody's self-esteem is high. And the question of the day turns from, "How do we fix the public school problem?" to, "Let's talk about the budget."

You know the game: Now you see it; now you don't.

That imagined scenario serves as an introduction to a discussion of the roles of society and parents in the educational process.

Society's role

Those with wealth oftentimes try to buy their way out of unpleasant problems.

America, the wealthiest nation on earth, has done that for years. Education is one of many sectors that have been embraced the philosophy that "more money will fix it."

It didn't. The system isn't working and it won't. More oil for a leaking engine fixes nothing.

Concerned citizens must insist upon well-publicized, fundamental changes that will lead to a quality education for their children. The media can help by keeping the heat on. Parents must cooperate. Educators must bend.

Discipline is a major problem in public education. In a society increasingly secular and free-swinging, it is not easy to persuade children that habits and attitudes seldom seen at home are nevertheless the appropriate ones to affect while in school.

If self-expression is the highest virtue, why behave?

If respect for police, adults, and teachers is not taught at home, why expect it at school?

Educating America's young will continue to be exceedingly difficult until America's adults behave more responsibly.

The role of parents

The role of parents is a seminal one. Why? Because they supply the kids. And here the GIGO principle applies:Garbage in equals garbage out. A harsh description, perhaps, but it makes the point. Send non-students to school and non-students will emerge.

Parents are responsible for students' fundamental behavior which, if improved, will do more to improve the quality of education than anything else.

Some suggestions for the parents out there:

1.) Deliver well-behaved kids at the school door.

2.) Obedience-train them before you turn them loose on society.

3.) Research teaching methods; insist upon accountability (tests).

4.) Give teachers the benefit of the doubt when they complain about your child's behavior. Until evidence exists to the contrary, support the teacher.

5.) Monitor your child's progress in school.

6.) Make clear you do not want your child exposed to language or literature that offends your principles or contradicts what you teach them at home.

7.) Arrange work hours to make possible the level of supervision your child needs.

8.) Control your economic appetites; they must not impose behaviors that sabotage duties related to responsible parenthood.

Inability or unwillingness of parents to cooperate with public schools in this way will continue to corrupt them with unruly, unteachable students.

Other factors

A look at the accompanying chart indicates there are other factors which may affect school performance. A few comments about each:

Household income -- Seventy-one percent of the best-performing districts have above-average household income levels; 67 percent of those at the low end of the scale had below-average income levels. A neat correlation, but it isn't perfect.

Average income in Newburyport and Rockport is below average, but their school yield above-average results; Beverly and Danvers are within the range income-wise, but receive a below-average payoff.

Why does household income have such a significant impact? There's no direct cause-and-effect, but indirectly, higher incomes mean bigger homes with better and quieter study spaces. And more money may also mean less day-to-day stress in the home.

Let's face it. Money helps.

Parents' education -- All seven of the highest-achieving school system were at or above the average in terms of the percentage of parents with a college education, while the opposite was true for the six districts with the lowest SAT scores -- a powerful, almost indisputable, indicator of this being a significant factor.

The presence of college-educated parents is one more intangible advantage that some students and school districts have over others.

Why? Because once you've tasted the wine, your appreciation of the beverage improves and broadens. College graduates are more apt to understand the education process, more likely to inspire copycat behavior in a child. Bringing that attitude to class helps everybody.

Educational goals -- The best-performing districts also have the highest percentage of students planning to pursue their education after high school.

Students with a poor educational experience in high school are not likely to be enthused about more of the same. So in districts like Salem, Peabody, Beverly and Danvers with less-than-stellar SAT scores, it is a tribute to the teachers and parents that a good number of students have been inspired to go onto college anyway.

This bodes also well for the future of those districts. Are better days coming?

SAT participation -- The willingness to compete, to do the things advancement requires, is a positive sign. Interested students are on the way to becoming good ones.

All the higher-achieving districts had average or above average numbers of students taking the SAT. Among the lower-achieving school systems, students in Beverly, Danvers and Peabody are showed healthy interest in the test, a trend that promises future improvement.

Iowa Grade 3 reading test scores -- All the highest-achieving districts had scores that were at or above average on this test. Of the six in the lower ranks, Beverly, Danvers and Peabody show the same spark; Lynn, Gloucester and Salem do not.

This test is a harbinger of things to come. Fourteen percent of third-grade students from Newton can't read well; the figure is 46 percent in Lynn. Like it or not, the ability to read English well is a prerequisite for advancement in other academic disciplines.

The greatest enemies of immigrant families are the agitators who insist upon extended multilingual language programs, and the educational bureaucrats who support them.

Conclusions

Some final observations about the state of education today:

The system itself has been savaged in recent years. Some of the criticism is deserved, but much of it is not.

Teachers do not create students -- parents do. Schools did not volunteer for child sitting duty -- society forced the issue.

But educators are responsible for one thing: Their voices are loud when it comes to economic demands; relatively silent about the conditions they must work under.

They need leadership, men and women who assert the proper and primary mission of their school systems, which is to educate. Not to feed. Not to babysit. Not to police the unruly, untamed teen-ager.

Educators must recover control of their schools; re-establish classroom authority for teachers; dump fashionable, but unproductive, teaching methods; mark, pass or flunk students as appropriate; suspend hoodlums. They need to create alliances with governors, mayors and town managers and develop firm understandings with parents.

In short, educators must run their shop and complain to the high heavens and the general public when anybody imposes foreign, inappropriate responsibilities on them.

That's all there is to it. Is there a word that captures the spirit of these general ideas? Some may say it will take a miracle, but SAT scores and educational performance won't improve until that miracle occurs.

Robert Kelly has lived in Peabody for the past 25 years. A former CPA and management consultant, he has written books and articles on subjects ranging from baseball to business management, and has recently spent extensive time examining the wealth of information available on the state Department of Education's electronic database from which most of the figures cited were gathered.