Keccles you sound very frustrated and I
understand. I was a parent and an engineer
before becoming a teacher and I have a
weird perspective maybe. Historically, it
seems to me, tests and grades were
about "gottcha". Let's see if you (the
student) memorized what I'm going to test
you on. Or worse, NC's end of grade tests
actually try to trick the students by
making the questions misleading and all the
wrong answers available in the multiple
guess list.

I think teachers are trying to change to a
better system of measuring or assessing
learning. Hence rubrics and performance
assessment... But it's hard! (whine, boo
hoo) And it's sort of like changing
infrastructure. It takes a long time. An
analogy that makes sense to me is as
follows. The auto companies have prototype
cars that run on hydrogen fuel cells.
Cheap, renewable non-polluting fuel. They
believe this is the future of
transportation. But how to make the
transition? Even if they produced and we
bought the hydrogen cars, where would we go
to fuel-up? The infrastructure of gas
stations (schools), pipelines (teachers),
big oil companies (administrators, unions
and politicians) all support the out dated
business as usual cars. The transition
will be long and probably painful.

I think the question of parent
accountability goes to the frustration of
many teachers who see the students not
working up to their potential. We wouldn't
be so frustrated if we didn't care.

I don't think, as a parent, we can afford
to wait for all teachers to be competent,
caring, master teachers like Jacque/WAK.
The stakes are too high for our kids. You
can hold me accountable - I'm doing my
job. My kids know they're expected to get
good grades, work hard, behave, do their
homework. We have consequences and
rewards. We read to them, with them and
around them. The Discovery channel is as
popular as Cartoon Network. yada yada yada!

It sounds like you do these things too.
The problem isn't parents like us. We are
acountable for our children's future and no
one has to pass a law to make us to our
job. It's the parents who make excuses for
their smart child who's getting Fs and
detention constantly. Ones whos kids have
failed nearly every class since 5th grade,
yet said/did nothing when the child was
promoted every year. Ones who don't have a
thing to read in the whole house, who's
kids stay up til 1am and come to school
exhausted in wrinkled clothing from under
the bed (or whereever.) You'd think these
kids would be few and far between, but
they're not.

Bill Page and George Will both quoted the
same study recently. 91% of a childs life
is spent at home. 9% at school. Teaching
takes place everywhere. But the most
important influence (and righly so) in a
child's life is his/her family.

I wish there were more parents like you in
my school. The truely caring,
professional, hardworking teachers in my
school jump for joy over supportive
parents. We can tell who you are. Your
kids reflect you.

Stacy
1/08/02

This month's letters: