Americans have an extravagant faith in the ability of education to solve all manner of social problems. In our mind's eye, schools are engines of progress that create opportunity and foster upward mobility. To the contrary, these persistent achievement gaps demonstrate the limits of schools to compensate for problems outside the classroom - broken homes, street violence, indifference to education - that discourage learning and inhibit teaching. As child-psychologist Jerome Kagan points out, a strong predictor of children's school success is the educational attainment of their parents. The higher it is, the more parents read to them, inform and encourage them.
An excellent point.
A successful school is a complex equation with many components. It is not a simple formula, as many (Arne Duncan and Michelle Rhee come to mind) want us to believe.
Give me some engaged and motivated students, and, together, we can achieve and work wonders. But students - and parents - have to do their part.
That doesn't always happen.
If I only had students as motivated for my class as they are for athletics. I had a student come in to ask me a question about their upcoming research paper. They were asking me the question at the end of the day because they had missed school for illness. They also were on their way to hockey practice. Can't miss practice because they'd have to miss the following game.
But missing school is perfectly okay?
Solve that, and you can count on solving some of what's wrong in education.
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