No Parents Left Behind

Education reform continues to be a hot topic around these United States, with "low-performing schools" and "highly qualified teachers" getting a lot of attention. This is the time of year where those of us in the education biz pace around our cages, waiting for the scores from those all-important standardized tests to show up. It will be mid to late August before the computers up in Sacramento spit out our marching orders. What list will we find ourselves on this year?
While we wait for that inevitability, it might be nice to visit a happy place, if Detroit can be described in such terms.
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy says that in Detroit, where the lack of making parents accountable for their children partly is blamed on elevated truancy and dropout rates, as well as a recent rash of violent crimes involving teens, parents should go to jail for up to three days for missing parent-teacher meetings. Three days in jail? Like criminals? Who does this Kym Worthy think she is? "I understand the prosecutor's concern, but jail time?" said Detroit middle school teacher Ann Crowley. Even the teachers are having a hard time getting behind this one.
But we can dream, can't we? In a world where achievement for our children is based on a test taken over the course of five days at the end of a school year that may or may not have included a student's best work or effort. These standardized test scores, as important as they are, do not influence a child's progress. On the contrary, they only become available months after the school year has ended, and that kid's future has already been decided. Any highly qualified teacher would have set up a conference with that student's parent who might be in danger of failing. Maybe they were having trouble getting to school on time, or needed to have the correct permissions to get additional support or simply checking in on the progress they were supposed to be making.
No, I don't believe that tossing parents in jail for missing report card conferences would save our schools, much less our society, but it does tell me that someone has finally caught wind of that third leg of the triangle and that the time has come when students, teachers and parents begin to work together to reform education. Meeting with your child's teacher once a year doesn't sound like too big a price to start.