Seperation of Parents and Schools

[Bonnie]

With all the talk about schools and funding, it’s important to think about what schools are supposed to do. Schools are supposed to help parents in their responsibility of educating their children. It is the parents who have the responsibility, and they loan it to the schools.

Schools are not substitute parents, schools are not to be protected from competition, they are not to be the social structure for your children, and schools do not call the shots. I know that is a shock to most of you, but your taxpayer dollars pay for public schools, and that means you are in control.

There has been an assault on parents and their ability to parent by the left. Recently, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Fields v. Palmdale that parents had “no specific right” to control their children’s exposure to matters related to sex, or anything else for that matter. The court said that the Constitution didn’t support parents and that further, the “the deep roots of our nation’s history and tradition or implied concept of ordered liberty” did not support that parents have the final say on school curriculum, including curriculum on sex.


America is tired of being told we have lousy parents, bad kids and we can’t do anything without the help of government and if America isn’t, I sure am. Yes, there are bad parents out there, but there are many more good ones.

Common sense and the natural law outlined in the Declaration of Independence tell us that the parents should be the final word on the education of children. While the idea of a “department of education” dates back to the 1860s, Congress feared that the department would have too much power over local schools and kept it small until 1980. Until the Lyndon Johnson administration, Congress made clear its intention that the secretary of education and other officials be prohibited from exercising direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, instructional programs, administration, or personnel of any educational institution. Such matters were and should be the responsibility of states, localities, and private institutions.

The Johnson administration began adding many programs designed to help educate the poor, however the report, “A Nation At Risk” put out by the Department of Education (made a cabinet level position in 1980), led Congress to the conclusion that schools needed more involvement from the federal government. The fact of the matter is that the more the federal government has been involved, the worse schools have gotten. And with more involvement of the federal government, there has been more alienation of the parent from the school system. This is not a reflection on No Child Left Behind, which is actually helping the students it was designed to help—those left behind by the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” But, the one size fits all approach of NCLB has made schools doing well before NCLB be so bogged down in bureaucracy that teachers are unhappy.

One of the most important reforms that didn’t make it into No Child Left Behind was widespread availability of school vouchers. Last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spoke to a group of Bronx activist Hillary lovers and predicted that vouchers would eventually lead to the creation of taxpayer-financed white supremacist academies or even a government funded school of the jihad. Hasn’t she learned that people are listening to her and that she will have to justify those remarks at some time in the future? And where is Howard Dean on this issue? His state, Vermont, has had something like vouchers, called “town tuitioning” since the mid 1800s, but you never here him talk about it.

So what to do about education? We need to abolish the cabinet level office of Department of Education. The only function a department of education would have in Washington would be a clearinghouse of ideas with no control over local schools. That would be dealt with on the state level. I believe that President Bush was right on No Child Left Behind in Texas, but it has not translated well on a federal level. Without vouchers in the legislation, then it is just big government intrusion into something that works best on the state and local level. There has been some progress in the target school groups since NCLB, but the one size fits all nature of it is bogging down schools that were already performing. We should leave those schools alone and let them do what they do.

Strong public education benefits everyone in this society. It doesn’t have to be government run, though. In the same way that public schools revolutionized education in the 19th and 20th centuries, we need to be looking for new ways to educate children in the 21st century and the same model won’t work. States should be strong in this mix as well as local communities. The closer the control is to the parent, the better the child will do, you can bet on it.

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/MarthaZoller/2006/03/12/189484.html

I think parents are finally waking up to this. I hope so anyway.

 

[Nienna]

The closer the control is to the parent, the better the child will do, you can bet on it.

 

[nukeman]

I have to say with my experience with the public schools around here (I have 4 children) That they want your cooperation only if they see a behavior problem; however, if you see a teaching discrepancy or a conflict of interest than you are a trouble maker and someone they dont want to deal with.

This is the primary problem with schools they want to tell the parents what they are doing wrong, how pathetic they are at raising the children, and how the schools have to pick up the slack. Heaven forbid you point out a problem with their educational technique. I think a lot of educators forget that they are not the only ones who attended college, and some of us have a higher than 6th grade education..

Just my 2 cents worth sorry if it sounds like a rant.... :blah2:

 

[Nienna]

Good rant!
And welcome to the "Four Kid Club"!