Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Where's the Education?":
I am a teacher who both lives and teaches in Plainview. I just wanted to make one point about what I see in this blog and what I have personally observed. The overall tenor of this blog is that teachers don't care or are too self absorbed to care. From what I see observing both the teachers that I work with, and the teachers that teach my children, this is not true. I teach in one of our middle schools, it is the policy of my team to make contact with parents when their children's average is below a 75, this marking period we attempted to make contact with the families of 29 students who fell below that mark. (Most of them were not failing) so far we have received 2 replies. To me this shows a lack of concern by parents and it makes me question their commitment to their children’s education. I can’t for the life of me understand why all 29 would not make an attempt to contact us?
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Does your team have a policy of communication with parents of students whose performance exceeds a 75%? If not, you are basically confirming the district's lack of commitment to above average students. Why this idea that advancement and/or higher intelligence equates with less instruction? Are under average achievers the only one entitled to teachers' attention?
ReplyDeletehere's an update, we arrempted to contact four more students. none replied.
ReplyDeleteHow many parents of high achieving/highly motivated students do you initiate contact with?
ReplyDeleteWe attempt to contact every parent on our team at least once per marking period, we explain to them that there are several ways to get into contact with the team and we ask them for any concerns they may have. Generally speaking, we do attempt to contact the families of lower performing students more often then the others because we want to work with the families to help them in helping their children. As of Friday we have not received any more replies. This to me is inexcusable.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the parents whose involvement you need the most are oftentimes the very ones whose concern is limited, if at all. Education starts in the home. Teachers should be held accountable for the teachers' role in education, not the parents' role. Except in cases of extreme emergency, which can happen from time to time, parents should be answering teachers' phone calls. The same holds true for teachers and administrators answering parents' phone calls.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, please consider the following very carefully.
You write, "Generally speaking, we do attempt to contact the families of lower performing students more often than the others because we want to work with the families to help them in helping their children." Be careful with this line of thinking.
Meeting or exceeding the standard does not mean that the student needs the teacher's attention any less than those who fall behind. In fact, those that achieve well beyond the norm may need you more than the others as will their parents.
Sadly, public education in this country is so focused on bringing up the bottom, educators fail to realize the unfair balance this ultimately leads to. It sends a very clear message to many students and parents of where teachers allegiances are.