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What’s the fix? It’s not the system. If you have parents that are involved in education and engage in the kind of child-rearing, that is conducive to education

What’s the fix? It’s not the system. If you have parents that are involved in education and engage in the kind of child-rearing, that is conducive to education - it doesn’t matter the kind of system you’re operating under (keep in mind, our bar for success is very low - we want kids that graduate high-school to be functionally literate with basic arithmetic and basic general knowledge). Put another way, if a child graduates and they are functionally illiterate, I don’t care how bad California’s public education is, the fault lays with the parents for letting their child be illiterate.

pigsty 3y ago
My parents were straight D/F students and never helped me with classes at all. I would’ve appreciated help that would’ve let me go farther, but that’s at a point well past algebra. Parents are part of the problem, but it seems like we’re just desperately trying to pin the responsibility on one specific person in the child’s life and put it out of their personal responsibility. That’s not the case. Some kids get everything they need to succeed provided for them and have plenty of assistance and choose to fail. Some have nothing but barriers put all around them and they still bust their ass to succeed.
- macspoofing 3y ago
  Today we are graduating an unacceptably large numbers of functional illiterate kids from high school. If a kid graduates high school and they are functionally illiterate, that illustrates neglect by parents over many years. It has nothing to do with the academic background of said parents or whether they themselves can read or write. It has nothing to do with the state of public education, or the quality of teachers - the public system is good enough to teach literacy over 15 years of schooling. The quality of the public system may be important for the last mile of education (where you’re trying to provide kids a richer educational experience), but our bar for success is much much lower. Put another way, you cannot convince me that the parents are not at fault when a kid can’t read or write after 15 years of education (after having sampled many many teachers and teaching styles, including summer school and remedial education, during that time).
  - pigsty 3y ago
    The kid is the one in class choosing not to read. Parents can be destructive influences on kids, but kids also do have free will and destructive influences amongst their peers who they choose to associate with. It’s a compounding problem and each time we assign blame to one (1) thing, we’re leaving other causes untreated and not making the problem better at all.
    - staunton 3y ago
      Would you say that "if a child doesn't want to learn how to read, that's fine, their choice"?
      - pigsty 3y ago
        I’d say ask find out why they’re saying they don’t want to read and address all those causes. There are plenty of kids with great parents who are surrounded by awful peers at school and media that glorifies being uneducated. Then you leave 2 bad kids in a class of good kids, and you’ll get endless distractions that cause the others to give up and resent school. You address just one cause and you have countless others. You need to go after a load of issues and it’s honestly more complicated than we want to admit.
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- deleted 3y ago
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- LeanderK 3y ago
  If you pin every responsibility to the parents you are just leaving unlucky kids behind. Having someone to blame is not helping kids succeed without much support from the parents. Of course someone will always succeed despite the odds, but the odds are still stacked agains the poor kid. It just entrenches wealth and slows down social mobility.
LeanderK 3y ago
What's the fix? More support from the state of course. It really is a task for the society compared to the individual, otherwise you will never ever ever have a fair system. Success in schools should not be so dependent on the parents. What about single parents? Do you just accept that it will be miserable for them to get their kids trough school? Parents without a lot of education will also have a problem of helping their kids. And what about those kids? Will you just leave them behind? It's not their fault they are born in the wrong family. This is just a take I would just really not agree with.
- macspoofing 3y ago
  > More support from the state of course … Success in schools should not be so dependent on the parents That’s the current theory and it fails. The reality is that public eduction is education at (massive) scale. There is no amount of available resources to create, say, a personalized learning environment with dedicated teachers for individual students - when you’re dealing with millions, or tens of millions of students. Parental involvement is so critical because that is the individualized focus that is needed by kids. There is no way for you to create a public system that overcomes the success that comes out of parents who are involved and invested in their child’s education. No way.
  - LeanderK 3y ago
    > That’s the current theory and it fails I do not see such evidence, maybe it fails in san francisco but that can have thousands of reasons. Everything I've read here points me to the fact that the public education is not good/comprehensive enough and too inflexible. I am honestly a bit shocked what i've read here, this is definitely not my experience with public education, like not at all. San francisco is rich, people make a lot of money there. There is no excuse why public education should not excel. I bet every major politician has his kids on a private school and also every other decision maker. > There is no way for you to create a public system that overcomes the success that comes out of parents who are involved and invested in their child’s education This is not exactly what I said. It is probably impossible in practice to eliminate this advantage. But while impossible to eliminate, you can try to minimise it and you should. It's the only fair thing to do because kids can't choose their parents. I would go further, it's the only ethical thing to do.

pigsty 3y ago

My parents were straight D/F students and never helped me with classes at all. I would’ve appreciated help that would’ve let me go farther, but that’s at a point well past algebra. Parents are part of the problem, but it seems like we’re just desperately trying to pin the responsibility on one specific person in the child’s life and put it out of their personal responsibility. That’s not the case. Some kids get everything they need to succeed provided for them and have plenty of assistance and choose to fail. Some have nothing but barriers put all around them and they still bust their ass to succeed.

macspoofing 3y ago
Today we are graduating an unacceptably large numbers of functional illiterate kids from high school. If a kid graduates high school and they are functionally illiterate, that illustrates neglect by parents over many years. It has nothing to do with the academic background of said parents or whether they themselves can read or write. It has nothing to do with the state of public education, or the quality of teachers - the public system is good enough to teach literacy over 15 years of schooling. The quality of the public system may be important for the last mile of education (where you’re trying to provide kids a richer educational experience), but our bar for success is much much lower. Put another way, you cannot convince me that the parents are not at fault when a kid can’t read or write after 15 years of education (after having sampled many many teachers and teaching styles, including summer school and remedial education, during that time).
- pigsty 3y ago
  The kid is the one in class choosing not to read. Parents can be destructive influences on kids, but kids also do have free will and destructive influences amongst their peers who they choose to associate with. It’s a compounding problem and each time we assign blame to one (1) thing, we’re leaving other causes untreated and not making the problem better at all.
  - staunton 3y ago
    Would you say that "if a child doesn't want to learn how to read, that's fine, their choice"?
    - pigsty 3y ago
      I’d say ask find out why they’re saying they don’t want to read and address all those causes. There are plenty of kids with great parents who are surrounded by awful peers at school and media that glorifies being uneducated. Then you leave 2 bad kids in a class of good kids, and you’ll get endless distractions that cause the others to give up and resent school. You address just one cause and you have countless others. You need to go after a load of issues and it’s honestly more complicated than we want to admit.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
LeanderK 3y ago
If you pin every responsibility to the parents you are just leaving unlucky kids behind. Having someone to blame is not helping kids succeed without much support from the parents. Of course someone will always succeed despite the odds, but the odds are still stacked agains the poor kid. It just entrenches wealth and slows down social mobility.

LeanderK 3y ago

What's the fix? More support from the state of course. It really is a task for the society compared to the individual, otherwise you will never ever ever have a fair system. Success in schools should not be so dependent on the parents. What about single parents? Do you just accept that it will be miserable for them to get their kids trough school? Parents without a lot of education will also have a problem of helping their kids. And what about those kids? Will you just leave them behind? It's not their fault they are born in the wrong family. This is just a take I would just really not agree with.

macspoofing 3y ago
> More support from the state of course … Success in schools should not be so dependent on the parents That’s the current theory and it fails. The reality is that public eduction is education at (massive) scale. There is no amount of available resources to create, say, a personalized learning environment with dedicated teachers for individual students - when you’re dealing with millions, or tens of millions of students. Parental involvement is so critical because that is the individualized focus that is needed by kids. There is no way for you to create a public system that overcomes the success that comes out of parents who are involved and invested in their child’s education. No way.
- LeanderK 3y ago
  > That’s the current theory and it fails I do not see such evidence, maybe it fails in san francisco but that can have thousands of reasons. Everything I've read here points me to the fact that the public education is not good/comprehensive enough and too inflexible. I am honestly a bit shocked what i've read here, this is definitely not my experience with public education, like not at all. San francisco is rich, people make a lot of money there. There is no excuse why public education should not excel. I bet every major politician has his kids on a private school and also every other decision maker. > There is no way for you to create a public system that overcomes the success that comes out of parents who are involved and invested in their child’s education This is not exactly what I said. It is probably impossible in practice to eliminate this advantage. But while impossible to eliminate, you can try to minimise it and you should. It's the only fair thing to do because kids can't choose their parents. I would go further, it's the only ethical thing to do.