As you might expect, Governor
Romney expressed the belief, which I share, that student success is inextricably
linked to parents in a litany of ways. As readers of this blog know, I recently
had an Op Ed published in the Trenton Times (May 9, 2012) where I laid out 5 “lenses”
through which we can evaluate the performance of parents in fulfilling their
duties to their children in the area of education: health and welfare, resource
acquisition, oversight, engagement, opportunities for enrichment, and
values/advocacy. I absolutely share Mitt’s belief that parents are the single
most important variable in student achievement, and though some students are
able to overcome their parent’s deficiencies, it is clearly the exception.
Now before I get to my point
about “Mitt the Urban Reformer,” I would like to say a word about parents,
especially those in the inner city. Many of these parents themselves face
challenges that compromise their ability to meet their child’s needs, while
other parents seemingly elect to neglect their children. I believe that
government can play a role in helping these parents, whether it is easing the
path to home ownership, which gives families some equity they can use to help
their child, or incentivizing the process by paying -either with cash or “in-kind”-
parents that attend parent/teacher conferences or activities involving their
child. These are but two examples. The important point again is the primacy of
parent behavior.
If you accept the
indisputable fact that a community is a collection of families, then we must draw
the conclusion that a healthy, vibrant, successful school can only be sustained
in communities where the majority of parents are meeting their child’s needs. In
Harlem, we see the effort of Geoffrey Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone- a
non-profit community support group. We need to support families individually,
but we must also support the environment that these parents’ children are going
to be growing up in. The likelihood of suburban middle class suburban families,
some of whom probably “fled” the inner city once they achieved some upward
mobility, moving back into the cities is extremely remote.
Mitt Romney has made the
family the centerpiece of education reform. Implicit in his advocacy for
vouchers and choice is a belief that failing schools are at its core the result
of communities dominated by “failing families,” leading to a failure in the
schools to create a dynamic learning culture, thereby justifying a policy allowing
for individual families to opt out of the local school and send their children
elsewhere. Mr. Romney has to know that such a policy will have a limited salutary
effect. If he is truly committed to a quality education for all, then
consistency demands that he establish public policy that will increase the
number of inner city families instilled with “middle class values” and
committed to the education of their children. Vouchers and choice, in the
absence of any true urban reform, is nothing more than a talking point; it will
have no substantive effect on inner city schools or the challenges faced by the
vast majority of children.
An Addendum:
My challenge to anybody: If
you give me demographic information about a community, I can almost guarantee you
that I can predict student outcomes at that school. All I need to know is the
following:
1)
Percentage of
home ownership in the community
2)
Average family
income
3)
Percentage of
single parent families
4)
Average home
values relative to a state average
5)
Percentage of
families receiving some form of State or Federal Aid
6)
Percentage of
families in poverty
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