I’m a parent, not a teacher, and I have no problem with the majority of complaints from teachers about parents.
During parent/teacher conference times, both my husband and I have had far too many teachers tell us “You are not the parents I need to see” for me to believe that lack of parental involvement is not a major problem. With a class of less than 20, and the parent/s of 3 students show up? That’s pretty pathetic.
My daughter and her friend did not ride the bus last year, I drove them both to school every morning and the other girl’s mother picked them up every afternoon. One or the other of us saw one of the girls’ teachers EVERY day. When my friend had to go back to work because her husband had a heart attack and couldn’t work, either he or I picked them up every afternoon, and on his days off, my husband did the drop off or pick up.
I’ve seen first hand, on a daily basis that parents, or lack thereof, and parental involvement are a major problem.
That is just your local school. I would think that is a bit of a broad brush you are using there. Teachers, the bureaucratic system of the NEA, and the intrusion of the Federal government all have no business in a so-called “school” that is not much more than fancy day care.
The law is actually only about “compulsory attendance.” That is why schools districts haven’t and can’t be sued. There is NO guarantee of an education, there never was anything in the law about that.
“I’m a parent, not a teacher, and I have no problem with the majority of complaints from teachers about parents.”
I’m not saying its wrong for parents to take significant blame for the horrible state of public education. I’m just saying that the teaching profession in public schools is so badly infested with incompetence and self-interest that they need to clean their own house before they point the finger at anyone else. Until that happens I have no interest in their “professional” opinion on the problems of public education.
Yet, I skipped a grade, excelled in school, and didn’t cause problems.
Parents shouldn’t need to be involved in a major way, because then parents undercut the kid’s initiative to handle their own problems.
My sister, on the other hand, skipped days of high school, didn't do work in classes she despised, and my parents never knew about it until the report card came home. The school didn't see the need for parents to assume any of the responsibility that properly belongs to the kid, and they assumed, usually correctly, that bad grades would galvanize student and parents to fix the problem. We are infanticizing our kids by butting in to solve those problems for them, while preventing them from suffering the consequences of their own actions.