How About Better Parents?

[proud2BlibKansan]

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: November 19, 2011

IN recent years, we’ve been treated to reams of op-ed articles about how we need better teachers in our public schools and, if only the teachers’ unions would go away, our kids would score like Singapore’s on the big international tests. There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a student’s achievement.

How do we know? Every three years, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or O.E.C.D., conducts exams as part of the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which tests 15-year-olds in the world’s leading industrialized nations on their reading comprehension and ability to use what they’ve learned in math and science to solve real problems — the most important skills for succeeding in college and life. America’s 15-year-olds have not been distinguishing themselves in the PISA exams compared with students in Singapore, Finland and Shanghai.

To better understand why some students thrive taking the PISA tests and others do not, Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the exams for the O.E.C.D., was encouraged by the O.E.C.D. countries to look beyond the classrooms. So starting with four countries in 2006, and then adding 14 more in 2009, the PISA team went to the parents of 5,000 students and interviewed them “about how they raised their kids and then compared that with the test results” for each of those years, Schleicher explained to me. Two weeks ago, the PISA team published the three main findings of its study:

“Fifteen-year-old students whose parents often read books with them during their first year of primary school show markedly higher scores in PISA 2009 than students whose parents read with them infrequently or not at all. The performance advantage among students whose parents read to them in their early school years is evident regardless of the family’s socioeconomic background. Parents’ engagement with their 15-year-olds is strongly associated with better performance in PISA.”

more . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/friedman-how-about-better-parents.html?_r=2

[shraby]

1. How about making it so parents don't both have to have a

job in order to make ends meet? Sometimes even more than one job each. They might have time to help their children with learning what they need to know.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I had three jobs when my kids were young

But I still made it a priority to read to them. They are grown now and they don't talk much about my being at work a lot when they were little. But they do remember the books we read together.

[Irishonly]

32. My daughter does also

She reads "The Three Little Pigs" exactly the same way I read it to her. She also remembers I was always there to have goodies to her class parties and while I was fighting cancer and unable to work I made it to her class every week. Obviousy, I read the pigs when she was much younger but I read to her for years. She also talks homework time when I was grading papers and she did homework with several neighbor kids.

[NYC_SKP]

3. +1

Historians will, should the species survive, reflect on changes in our society (post ww2 through today) that increasingly left infants and children largely neglected.

Formerly, extended families, siblings at home if not a parent, more interaction and stimulation, and less pressure overall for adults, made for healthier children (and parents).

We live in mad times.

:patriot:

[patrice]

14. And daycare is NOT the same thing, not as acutely tuned to the mind-heart of the child itself instea

d of whatever religious institution or business the daycare represents at whatever level. Regard is, therefore, ALWAYS conditional and therein the programming begins.

Developmental stressors such as wide ranging examples of varient ethea could also result in confusion for which children almost never experience any models for reconciliation, i.e. how to figure out "Why?".

[LWolf]

11. I'm all for a living wage.

I hate to see my students and their families struggling. Poverty matters. Family culture also matters.

I'm an only child raised by a single working parent. She often worked more than one job. That didn't keep her from reading to and with me, or talking to me, singing to me, or playing with me.

[MadHound]

12. My parents both worked when I was growing up,

Yet they read to us, helped us with our homework, and in general did what parents are supposed to do, raise their kids properly. Yes, it entails sacrifice, but it is job 1 of being a parent.

[YvonneCa]

30. This raises the issue of ABSENT parents...

...which IS a factor in how kids do academically. Parents who work multiple jobs...responsibly, for their kids' benefit...do have a tough time and need support.

Parents who are absent for other reasons...drug abuse, in jail, illness...need a different kind of accountability. And their CHILDREN suffer, through no fault of their own. Those kids must not be forgotten.

Sometimes it is children having children...a vicious cycle that needs a solution. Imagine a 13-year-old former student, returning to visit my elementary classroom to show me their babies. It is heartbreaking. It makes me want to cry for both of them.

I've had students in my classroom trying to cope and get an education under ALL the above circumstances. They need more than just good teachers.

[roody]

4. Teachers know this.

[patrice]

5. Well read parents can probably also offer more answers to "Why?" than just force in "Because I/we

say so."

Well read parents may also model processes by means of which DISCOVERY (IES) of the various answers to "Why?" are possible.

[patrice]

7. The willingness to pursue various answers to questions could also be related to economic status.

Slaves may forget what free thinking is, so they don't model it for their children who then suffer from lack of identifying with their own personal motivations for learning.

[peace13]

6. In 6th grade our teacher spent 30 minutes a day reading to the class.

I had forgotten that until I read your post. We gathered on the rug and listened to the story together. It was a treat! I don't remember my parents reading to me but I read with my son for at least an hour a day from infancy on. I remember when he was in 6th grade and they were studying a play by Shakespeare. He just could not get into it. He came to me and asked me to read it out loud to him. Funny but after a short while he calmed about the writing and handled the assignment from there.

Reading is a gift. I don't think we should fight about who shares it with the young ones. Ideally it's the parents or grandparents but a brother or sister or even the baby sitter will suffice.

[Brickbat]

8. All of my teachers through sixth grade read to the class. It was awesome.

[The Genealogist]

34. Some of my deaerest memories of elementary school are

of times when my teachers read to the class. "James and the Giant Peach," "Stewart Little," the list goes on. Hearing the stories made my imagination work, picturing in my mind what the scenes I heard would look like. It was just fun and relaxing. Further, when I heard a story I liked, I often looked for other books by the same author. This encouraged me to read more.

[LWolf]

9. We've known this for my entire lifetime, let alone my career.

When will what teachers know count?

[YvonneCa]

31. Soon, I hope. As long as we keep...

...reminding TPTB. ;) :hi:

[MineralMan]

10. How? We cannot compel effective parenting.

Children are raised by a wide variety of parents, and the school has no tools to make people better parents after the fact. It is for that reason that we cannot shift the blame onto the parents when our schools fail. Children are in school most of the day, most of the year. They are a captive audience. It is the responsibility of the schools to level the playing field and help children achieve. Since parenting is so variable, the schools must provide an education to all children, regardless of the parents they have. Poor parenting is not an reason for children's failure to learn. It's just an excuse.

[MadHound]

13. Somehow, your latest avatar is so appropo.

What, you worry?

[MineralMan]

15. Like everything else involved with Mad Magazine,

Alfred is satire. Did you have any comment on my post, or are you just interested in my avatar? I'll be returning to my old avatar soon. It's also satirical.

[MadHound]

17. That was my comment on your post,

Figure it out.

[MineralMan]

19. You have a very nice day, won't you?

I did change my avatar. Perhaps you'll enjoy this one better.

[patrice]

16. unmitigated bullshit.

[MineralMan]

18. Thank you for your well-considered discussion of my post.

I always appreciate that.

[patrice]

20. Right you are. My response was well-considered & I decided some stuff is unmitigated bullshit.

Nothing more.

[eilen]

21. Indeed, relying on the parents to pick up the slack

only results in a wider disparity of acheivment in the classroom. I think schools have to take the variable of parent involvement out of the equation when it comes to planning curricula and setting goals for each individual student. Not all students have parents that are readers or who value education, or who are capable of reading to them. Some parents have alcoholism, some depression, some are working multiple jobs and many kids are on their own. Not all kids will sit and listen to you read to them for 30 minutes. Many parents feel that they supply clothing, food, shelter and love and it is the teacher's job to teach the school work. They will support the teacher as in-- telling their kids to do their homework, supplying a quiet spot and time for them to do it but honestly, many parents do not have time every day to have a sit down and read. This is not to dismiss parents that do-- I think that is wonderful but as a school they should not have those expectations.

[MineralMan]

23. Thank you. Our public schools take children from all possible

backgrounds. Since the backgrounds cannot be changed in many cases, the schools must deal with the facts as they are. The child from a completely dysfunctional home deserves the same chance to succeed as the child from the home where education is valued and supported. Does that take additional effort and funding? Of course it does. But, the schools cannot simply lay the blame on poor parenting. If the charge is to educate the children of the public, then the schools have no choice but to take those children as they come. If there is not sufficient funding and staffing to teach effectively, there is obviously not enough to reform parenting in this country.

[laundry_queen]

25. I agree with this

Despite my post. For instance, I think it's important for parent to model a love of reading, however many parents don't have the time (or themselves don't know how to read). For myself at the moment, I don't have the time to read to my kids during the week. I dislike the teacher's expectations that I should be reading to my one daughter 20 min/day. I have 4 kids. That's a lot of reading time. I'm a single parent who is in school full time and I am often doing homework or studying the entire evening. I simply cannot do it at the moment.

Here's a typical day for me: Get up at 6. Shower, get ready, eat. Get my kids up. The older 2 get ready on their own and leave for their bus early. Make my younger ones breakfast, get then dressed, hair done, teeth brushed. Make lunches. Go through what needs to be signed for the school that day. Pack up my school stuff and laptop. Bundle the little ones up and walk my dd to her bus stop. Run back to the house and buckle in the little one for daycare. Take her to daycare. Talk to her care provider while she clings to my legs. When she lets go, rush to my vehicle to try to get to school in 20 minutes. Be in school till 1. Go pick up my little one from daycare. Come home, have lunch, do some homework, entertain a 4 year old. Get stuff ready for supper. Go pick up the 8 year old, rush home, get her ready for dance. The older ones come home. I take 8 year old to dance and drop 11 yr old off at her paper route. Come home, start cooking supper. Get 14 year old to watch supper while I go pick up 8 yo from dance and 11 yo from paper route. Come home, eat supper, clean up (that's at least 1.5 hrs total). Go to my room to do more homework and study. Deal with constant interruptions while trying to figure out if my statistics problem is a claim or research, population or sample. Then it's bath time for the little ones. Barking at the older ones to do their chores. Getting the little ones ready for bed and tucking them in. Trying to get the older ones to get to bed. Finally, when everyone's in bed I get some time to do homework uninterrupted. Go to bed at midnight.

And I feel like I have more time than those single moms who work 3 jobs. I cannot imagine where they find the time to do anything, let alone sit down and read with their kids.

I think this is one area where a living wage really benefits society as a whole. For those who have take Econ, the social benefit that arises from a price floor (minimum wage) far offsets the theoretical loss of numbers of jobs due to the inefficiency, in my opinion.

[patrice]

26. I don't think anyone is excusing teachers from their responsibilities in what happens. nt

[eilen]

36. I wasn't inferring that teachers are not expected to meet their goals

I am thinking more along the lines of the recalibrated expectations that has been characteristic of the federal education policy.

[proud2BlibKansan]

28. Erasing those expectations means more children will fail.

That's the bottom line. The reason teachers hammer this to parents is because we KNOW it matters. We can't change that.

[proud2BlibKansan]

27. It's called being a good parent.

When my kids were young, my husband was in school and I was the sole breadwinner in our family. I worked 3 jobs for many years. Our kids qualified for free lunch at school. In other words, we were POOR. But that didn't keep us from being the best parents we could be. We read to our kids DAILY, helped them with homework DAILY, never missed a parent teacher conference, sporting event or school program. My husband arranged his class schedule so he could be home when the kids got out of school and so he could be the room parent for school parties. Our social life was our kids' sports and musical events.

It doesn't matter how much money you make or how many hours you work - a good parent understands his/her responsibilities. I got tired sometimes and just wanted to spend that Saturday morning in bed sleeping but then I reminded myself that my 8 year old was only going to be on the 3rd grade soccer team ONE season, that my high schooler was only going to be first chair in the school orchestra one more year. That 2nd grade play may be the most boring thing I can do this evening but MY CHILD was going to be up on that stage and I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

It also takes maybe 30 minutes (max) to read to a kid at bedtime. If I was working in the evening, we read the book first thing the next morning. That meant I had to get up a little earlier, but my child was WORTH IT.

I had a parent once tell me their daughter never read at home because I (the teacher) had not sent any books home. This family lived within walking distance of a wonderful public library. Should I have drawn them a map? Offered them a ride? Somehow I suspected that even if I did send a book home, no one in that house was going to make sure that child read every day.

Parents either take their responsibilities seriously or not. I have had parents who don't speak English yet they find the time to help with homework and read to their children. I once had a dad who was a truck driver and he read to his son over the phone every night when he was on the road. No matter where he was, he made sure to pull off the road or be in for the evening every night at 7:30 so he could read to his son. I've also had mothers and fathers who did not work yet couldn't find the time to help with homework or show up at school for a conference.

Every year we have more parents than I can count who don't even bother to give the school a correct phone number so we can contact them in case of an emergency. I can't even imagine how uncaring you need to be to send your child off to school every day knowing there is no way you or any other adult who knows your child can be contacted if your child gets sick or is injured. This is such a chronic problem it is absolutely shocking. I also taught 1st grade for years and every year there were several parents who never once came up to school to meet me and never returned phone calls or answered MAILED letters. Can you imagine sending a SIX YEAR OLD off every morning to spend the majority of their waking hours that day with an adult you have NEVER MET??

We can't level the playing field to erase bad parenting. There are literally thousands of studies connecting achievement in school to parenting. Parents who value education and spend time reading to their children and helping with homework have children who perform better in school and are less likely to drop out than children of parents who don't do those things. This is NOT rocket science. The MOST IMPORTANT JOB YOU WILL EVER HAVE IS PARENTING. Expecting the school to be 100% responsible for your child's education is a guarantee that your child will FAIL.

[MineralMan]

29. Yes. All parents should be good parents. They are not.

So, should the child not receive the very best possible education, simply because he or she has bad parents? Should the child suffer because of that? Should we simply discard the children of bad parents? I don't think so.

It is society's job to fill the gaps when parents do a poor job. It is to society's benefit if children are educated.

I do not blame the child for the parents. Ever.

That is the point of my post. The schools cannot fix the parents. They can only work with the children. If they make excuses for failure to educate children because of the children's parents, then they simply fail. If society fails to educated all of its children, then the society fails. It is our community responsibility to educate the children of the community...even those who have poor parents. It is our responsibility.

How do we do that? I do not have an answer for that question. I'm not a professional educator. However, there have been schools that have succeeded in doing it. How? Well, that's the question, isn't it?

Public education means educating the children of the community, regardless of the qualities of their parents. It is the children who are the students. It is the children who are depending on the school, as a tool of the society, to educate them. Can we let them down, and make excuses for why we have let them down? I do not think so, if we declare ourselves to be a society that provides an education to its children.

Are bad parents a problem? Of course they are, and in many ways. Can we turn bad parents into good parents? It doesn't seem so. Economic and sociological issues are in the way of that, and adults just aren't as flexible in their learning abilities as children are. We do not have schools to educate adults. We have schools to educate children. So, let's do that, to the very best of our abilities. Then, the schools, the adminstrators of those schools, and the teachers and other staff of those schools can all hold their heads high and take the credit. If they don't, they'll surely take the blame.

"Oh, sorry there, kid. Too bad you didn't have better parents. Oh, well...it's not our fault you didn't get an education...." That isn't the way we're supposed to do things here. It isn't the way we used to do things, either. I grew up in a small town that had a large percentage of people who were poor. Their parents didn't participate, but the kids got taught somehow. That was in the 1950s. It was a small school. I knew everyone in my class. They learned, at least up to nearly their potential. I remember everything. So, it is possible. Let's do that again. What do you say?

[proud2BlibKansan]

33. Research says it's critical.

You can ignore it all you want. Can't change it though.

We do the very best we can at school in spite of horrific odds for many kids. It's certainly not fair to expect the school to parent the child.

[eilen]

35. I don't ask the schools to parent the child

I expect them to educate him, inspire him, motivate him. It is the parent's responsibility to deliver a child that can display civilized behavior in a social setting so the child can learn. Ultimately, until a child can do that, I don't see the point in sending him/her there. Find a daycare or behavioral modification setting instead. Otherwise the kid is distracting other students and impeding a teacher's ability to effectively communicate and teach. Teachers are not doctors, therapists, nor the child's parents. When I attended school there were rules addressing conduct and if they were not followed you were disciplined and sent home. Then your parents disciplined you and we learned really quick not to cause a problem. For children with developmental disabilities, there were special education classes, tutors and therapists. However, all my teachers expected from my parents was that I would be delivered on time, clothed, and prepared for school.

My brother and I both received free school lunches and were in the system. I had a speech impediment and needed tutoring in math (due to the spectacularly horrifyingly incompetent cruel teachers I had in Catholic school) so was taken out of the class for those reasons. Soon I mastered multiplication tables, long division and fractions and learned out to speak without a lisp. But that did not stop my teacher from sending me home when I arrived without my glasses. My brother was sent home for getting in fights. We were expected to be disciplined by our parents and return to school, behave and stay out of trouble.

I expect a teacher will correct a student who is not following rules-- like -- John, put that book away, we are reviewing the math problems now. Gina, stop talking, one more time, you will sit in front with me; Jeffrey-- raise your hand and ask permission before getting up to sharpen your pencil; Sarah, throw that gum out. etc. That is the extent of what a teacher should be expected to handle in a classroom.

[redqueen]

47. +1000

[laundry_queen]

22. Modeling is important too

I will admit to reading infrequently to my kids (a few times a week usually). They were all reading at a pretty young age by themselves so they preferred to read alone. The ones who can read will often read to their younger sibling.

However, I am a book nut. My kids know it. I LOVE reading. I can devour a 500 page book in a day if I have time. If I have free time (scarce right now being a single mom and a full time student) my face is usually planted in a book. I often take them to the book store. If they say they are bored at home, I say, "well, then, go read a book." If we are at a toy store and they all want a toy I say, "I'll tell you what, you can each pick out a book." They get books for gifts at birthdays and Christmas. I think it's so important to show a LOVE of reading.

At my girls' school, the teachers always send home this reading sheet, where if the kids read (or their parents read to them) at least 20 minutes a day, the one who has the most signatures at the end wins a prize. I disagree with this for my kids. I don't want to have to bribe them to read. So the teachers get pissed and think I never read to my kids (or they never read themselves) when actually, we read all the time. I just think reading should be thought of as a pleasure, and not some homework that if you do it, you get something. Reading itself should be the reward. I know that won't work for every family, but it works for mine. My girls are all book crazy, and every one of them (well the youngest isn't in school yet) are excellent students with mostly-A's.

So my point is, parents have to stop acting like reading is drudgery and start showing the kids it's a fun pastime. Kids will know if the parent reads to them simply because they think it will improve their grades in the long run vs if the parent reads to them because they enjoy books and stories and imagination.

[demigoddess]

24. I have two gifted range boys

One hated me to read to him, the other loved it. Personality differences. Both smart.

[davsand]

37. Our kid is our priority. Always has been, and it was our choice.

My heart breaks for the kids who have absentee parents or parents who are burdened with addictions or other issues that keep them from parenting.

My blood boils when I talk to my kid's teachers and I hear over and over that the kids who most need help are the same ones who have parents that don't bother to respond to notes, phone calls, or emails. I understand being busy, I totally get it is a hard old world right now where people work multiple jobs and scramble to keep food on the table or even a roof to keep that table under. I have personally been there more than I care to, but my kid was ALWAYS the priority, no matter what.

The expectation that the schools are the sole source of education for kids is complete crap. Anything can be an opportunity for learning, and too many parents abdicate that. I've volunteered in classrooms, coached, and done way more stuff with kids than I ever thought I would, but it has been by choice and because it was something I was willing to do not just for my kid but others as well. When we loaded the car up for a trip to a museum or a trip to the local free theatre, it was something all the kids benefited from. Music in the park is a free thing, and we took I dunno how many kids out for cheap picnics to hear various performances. It is just what you DO--ya know?

Similarly, just a silly car ride is an opportunity to play word games or point out numbers and letters to the younger set. I can't count the number of times we played alphabet or number bingo on the way to someplace like the grocery store or anyplace else people go every day. You gotta grab whatever time you have with them, IMO. Now that the kids are older, car rides are discussions about different things and different ideas. It isn't always profound, but I will guarantee that just talking to kids gets their attention. I have come to realize that too many of us talk to our kids about stuff like, Do your homework or Pick up your room, but not enough of us ask our kids what they think or why they feel the way they do about things.

Too many parents just give up completely, I think. It starts with education but carries over into other stuff. My 15 year old came home the other day with a story about one of the girls in her PE class that had to sleep in a freaking car overnight because her mom threw her out of the house during an argument. Probably there are a multitude of issues at work in that particular relationship, but I find it incomprehensible to throw a child out into the streets. I do not know that family (don't even know that girl's full name, really) but I would give anything to be able to understand what goes on that allows a parent to just toss their kid out like yesterday's newspaper (hell, I recycle even those, so maybe I'm some kind of closet hoarder of kids and paper--who knows?)

My way is not everyone's choice, but, damn, we adults can do better than this.


Laura

[treestar]

38. It must be that it needs to be better students

My parents paid practically no attention to what I did at school, but then I did my own homework and got good grades. I had almost entirely average teachers. I still learned.

When it comes to education, it is the student who has to pull the weight.

I understand exceptions for poverty and stressed households but overall, it's no good for parents and teachers and administrators and whoever else to point fingers. The students have to do it.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

39. Schools have to be able to educate the children of bad parents.

Yes, parenting makes a massive difference to educational outcome.

Yes, a school with predominantly middle-class children will achieve better educational outcomes than a school with equally good facilities, teachers etc but predominantly children with less-educated parents, and so grading schools by raw outcome rather than "value added" is unfair*.

But nonetheless, there are and will continue to be a large number of children whose parents are, for one reason or another, not good at it, and schools ought to give them the best education possible.

It's much easier for the government to improve schools than to improve parenting.




*That is, it's unfair when determining which teachers are doing a good job. If you want to predict which school your child will do best in, average outcome is almost certainly a better measure than value added, because being around other children who are doing well is a massive advantage.

[LWolf]

40. Schools ought to have the resources to do so. nt

[Donald Ian Rankin]

41. Absolutely, but "give more money to schools with bad results and less to schools with good results"

is very hard to sell politically, despite being a good idea.

There appears to be a vague idea that

1) Schools are entities in their own right
2) What schools desire is money
3) Whether or not a school does well depends on how Good a school it is.
4) To encourage schools to be Good rather than Bad, we should give Good schools more money and Bad ones less money.

[LWolf]

42. Just fully fund all schools, for all programs.

Make our schools community centers.

Fully fund parent ed, both academic and actual parenting classes, beginning when kids are in the womb.

Fully fund universal pre-school.

Fully fund lunch and breakfast.

Fully fund health care centers, including mental health, on school grounds.

Fully fund after and before school remedial programs, study halls, and enrichment programs.

Pay people to keep school doors open and run all of these services who aren't already spending 10 hours a day on their "regular" job.

Quit supporting ludicrous propositions like your #4; education policy is currently overwhelmed by such dysfunctional, destructive "wisdom."

Edited to add: abolish poverty, and watch schools "magically" improve.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

43. I don't think "fully funding schools" is possible.

"Give every child the best education possible" is a lovely slogan, but the level at which education stops benefiting from more spending is so high that it's not sanely achievable - for one thing, I think you'd want something between 1-1 and 5-1 tuition for most children most of the time.

All the state can do is give as many children as possible a "good enough" education - whatever that means.

I agree that spending significantly more on education than at present is a good idea, although I wouldn't necessarily allocate the money to the same things you would (first and foremost, I'd hire many, many more teachers and build more classrooms, to reduce class sizes); I'd also give a bigger share of the pie to schools with a higher proportion of children of poor parents than to schools with an easier job.

But I wouldn't think of it in terms of "fully funding schools" - I don't think that it stops being worth spending more money on schools well before you get to anything that can sanely be called "fully".

[Fumesucker]

44. Fully funding the military doesn't seem to be a problem..

:shrug:

[Donald Ian Rankin]

45. The US military is not fully-funded - 97% of the population are civilians N.T.

[Fumesucker]

46. I fail to see your point..

Not all Americans are school children either...

[Donald Ian Rankin]

48. My point is that "Fully funded" means "spending more wouldn't help".

Funding a public service is not a binary enough/not enough; it's a matter of diminishing returns.

Neither the US military nor the US education system is funded to the point where spending more wouldn't help it do a better job.

[Fumesucker]

49. Heh.. I think the US military would do a better job with *less* money..

For one thing the temptation on the part of politicians to start wars of choice would be somewhat curtailed.

I mean we spend as much on the military as the rest of the world all put together.

[LWolf]

50. You're thinking in terms of cost-benefit ratio;

I'm thinking of my individual students, and all of the students like them.

Each individual is worth whatever it takes, for me, because I'm on the line with them.

I do understand your pov, of course. If we worked, as a society, to rid ourselves of poverty and close the class/economic gaps, the achievement gaps would close as well, and we could limit ourselves to hiring more teachers, building more classrooms, and reducing class sizes.

And my liberal heart would bleed a little less for each student facing unreasonable challenges at home that limit their ability to achieve when at school, because there would be a strong, many-layered safety net for them.