Reply to Your daily reminder that expecting parents to teach their kids at home is super inequitable

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Reply to "Your daily reminder that expecting parents to teach their kids at home is super inequitable"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I feel like the point was missed here.  Sure, children with involved parents will always have advantages.  Socially, educationally, etc.  But no parent should have to teach their child basic reading, writing, and arithmetic.  That is in fact the job of the school. We should ALL want EVERY child to learn those basic things at school regardless of their parents' level of engagement at home.[/quote]

Thank you! You get it!

And other PPs - don’t cite Baltimore schools as your strawman. There are plenty of schools where kids come ready to learn but through no fault of their own have gaps in their learning because the school has gaps in its curriculum! The parents realize this after the fact and then stress out trying to homeschool them after school, or sign them up for expensive tutoring. It’s really sad to see.

[b]It would almost be better if the school sent a note home “We are covering math strategies in class but do not have time to spend on math facts. Please review these equations at home.” At least it would save the parent the trouble of researching what to do themselves.[/b]

Well-rated schools are coasting on the ability of parents to “supplement” and essentially homeschool. And it stresses the parents out, causes them to not enjoy time at home with their child, and likely leads to anxiety and depression in the child since they have fewer positive “fun” interactions with their parents.

I went private with my second from the start to escape this. I still regularly check on the curriculum and my child’s learning but haven’t felt there is anything missing that I need to supplement. This is obviously not a possibility for many though.[/quote]

This used to be called "home-work" and was very common in middle and upper elementary, but then parents in certain places (mostly white, UMC) were upset about how much homework their kids were getting. Let kids be kids! They need to play! So schools start adopting no-homework policies and that meant that some of the rote memorization of things like sight words or multiplication tables didn't make the cut, since those are things it's honestly hard to integrate into a classroom environment while keeping it interesting for the kids. Those things are much easier to send home as worksheets and then test the kids on to check in on their knowledge acquisition. But don't test kids! It's too stressful! See where this is going?

It's not just the school's fault, or the teacher's fault. It goes to these fundamental disagreements about what school is for, what childhood should be like, how we can support kids where they are at while preparing the for the future. And even what kind of future we are preparing them for. UMC white kids are often being prepared for a much gentler, more friendly future than kids from working class and poor families, especially if they are POC. So you often see more homework, testing, worksheets, and rote memorization in schools with higher number software FARMS kids because there is an understanding that (1) the parents really do not have the time or resources to do this, and (2) these kids have to prepare for a reality where they will not always be given the benefit of the doubt, there will not always be someone available to help them fill in a knowledge gap.

Truthfully I just don't worry about UMC white kids academically. The problem comes when everyone decides the schools attended by UMC white kids are the "best" schools because look at our test scores (ignoring the determinative impact of SES on test scores). What I find is that often the best schools serve a much more diverse student body, know how to support FARMS kids and other high risk kids who need more structure, more homework, but can also facilitate kids above grade level who need a challenge or a way to hold their interest and attention. It's hard. These schools are rare. They are often filled with teachers and administrators who 100% view the road of school to educate children, whatever their family background, and rise to that occasion. Often these schools are dismissed as inadequate due to test scores. Interesting, isn't it?[/quote]

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