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[quote=Anonymous]The underclass kids-in-factories post is so weird. Nobody is saying that parents should do absolutely nothing at home. I’m a PP with a kid in an elementary school that uses F&P and writers workshop, along with an exploratory math curriculum and almost no homework except remedial math facts 1x/week.

Of course we do reading, writing, and math at home, but I would not call it supplementing except for math and phonics. We read, write grocery lists and letters, talk about science topics and social characters from books, make predictions, draw, and play math games (again, not supplementing. If parents don’t do this, I don’t think they should be shamed). The supplementation part is that my kid in an outside math program which is over $2k/year and not feasible for all families. It’s 3 hours per week. I also bought a phonics based program and and taught reading and phonics at home in 1st grade because F&P wasn’t cutting it.

Now it’s 3rd grade and school STILL has not even begun to start teaching any kind of baseline of math and literacy beyond reading, free writing based on choice and no teacher corrections, and addition/subtraction facts in the double digits without regrouping. There are 2nd graders who still struggle with reading cvc books. And this is in a district with virtually no poverty and with all parents having at least bachelors degrees, and all K-2 classes capped at 20 kids / 1 teacher / 1 assistant. We are now looking at private school (or more likely parochial because of cost) because there just isn’t enough time in the day to supplement EVERYTHING at home and still be able to enjoy free time, play a sport kid loves, do music which kid also loves, and get 11 hours of sleep.

I think that all parents should be able to just follow what school lays out (like reading a book at night together, or doing math homework that is sent home) and have the kids be at a basic level of being able to read at write (assuming there are no learning differences). Instead, middle class and well off parents are having to bend over backwards to take kids to tutoring, centers, buy workbooks, do remedial phonics lessons, etc etc for kids to be able to be at grade level, while poor kids continue to be illiterate. Having this kind of curriculum really hurts those families who do not have the means to do all this supplementation. [/quote]

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