School authorities often blame “society,” meaning the American economic and political system, for the public schools’ continuing failure. They say that society makes it hard for parents, especially low-income parents, to do the right thing for their kids. Bob Chase, former National Education Association (NEA) president, noted this point in his November 16, 2001 speech before the National Press Club. He spoke about the time-crunch problem many parents faced. He referred to surveys and interviews in which parents consistently say they want to be more involved in their children’s education, but that employers don’t give them the time to do so.
The reason for this time crunch, according to Mr. Chase, was that many unskilled or low-income minority parents work long hours for low wages, especially single mothers. Because they often have to work two jobs just to pay the bills, many single mothers don’t have time to attend parent-teacher conferences or to keep up with their children’s educational progress.
Mr. Chase talked about employers who don’t give single mothers paid leave, flextime, or day-care benefits so they can have more time for their children. So society, in the form of uncooperative employers (or allegedly needed laws that would force employers to be more cooperative), creates this time crunch for parents. Without society’s cooperation in this matter, the argument goes, parents don’t have the time and allegedly can’t give schools the backing and cooperation that teachers need. 28
This argument doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. As we will see in Chapter 8, the average parent needs to spend only two to three hours a day home-schooling their children to give their kids a great education. Most working parents or even single moms could manage this if they schedule their time right. So employers don’t necessarily have to give parents flextime or paid leaves for parents to give their kids an excellent education at home.
For over two hundred years in this country, before public schools became entrenched by the 1890s, families of hard-working farmers, craftsmen, and even laborers managed to teach their children to read at home. Colonial farmers and laborers often worked from sun-up to sun-down, but still managed to find the time to teach their children to read, write, and do arithmetic. These parents didn’t blame “society.” They just made sure they found the time to educate their kids.
Paul Barton, working for the Educational Testing Service, conducted a 1993 study called “America’s Smallest School: The Family.” Barton found that one of the important factors determining a child’s educational performance was the presence or absence of two parents in the home. As evidence, he pointed out that North Dakota ranked first in math scores and second in the percentage of children in two-parent families, while the District of Columbia ranked next to last in math scores and last in two-parent families (meaning that it had the most single-parent homes). 29
Barton’s study reflects a disturbing trend—American family stability has indeed declined badly over the last fifty years. George Will, one of our most thoughtful syndicated columnists, pointed out in one of his columns that the percentage of children born to unmarried women in 1958 was 5 percent. In 1980, it was 18 percent. By 1999, it was 33 percent. In 1999, 48.4 percent of all children born to women of all races and ethnic background, ages twenty to twenty-four — were born out of wedlock 30
However, this explosion of single-mother families does not explain or justify public school’s never-ending failure. Neither do the long hours that low-income parents, single or married, must work. As noted earlier, if public schools knew their job, they would not need constant parental involvement. Also, children of these same hard-working mothers suddenly become much better students if they are lucky enough to transfer to a private school. In spite of poverty, society, or their uncooperative bosses, these parents push their kids to succeed in a Catholic or Protestant-affiliated private school. The fact that single mothers often work long hours has little to do with public-school failure.
Tags: education, public school
