Plating Up

When challenging the fact that there are APS third grade students who do not know the alphabet the sometimes spokesman for DeKalb County Schools shot back with "it's not the teachers' job to teach the alphabet it's the parents'." Setting aside that the fact itself is not even faint praise for APS' K-2 remediation efforts this is quite an interesting retort.

One explanation is that it is just a flippant remark made in the heat of a discussion. But there really was no discussion. Furthermore this particular mantra of "it's the parents" has been adopted by Thurmond to deflect any criticism of his bureaucracy. Not his fault--it's the parents who aren't stepping up.

And it seems very reasonable to insist that parents step to the plate. Or is it? What if we went a little more literal with that and demanded that parents teach the alphabet...perhaps over a hot bowl of alphabet soup? Have you ever wondered how it is that parents of children receiving free lunch also get food stamps? One of these clearly is not working. So why don't we insist that parents on SNAP actually use our money to feed their kids?

You won't find much support for that in Thurmond's educrat cronies because that would mean they would lose money. Every one of those free lunches comes with funding and knock on effects based on poverty are not easily dismissed either.

So Thurmond, his spokesman and those like them have created a very distorted world of public education where it is the parents' responsibility to teach and the teachers' responsibility to feed.

Still think public education can be fixed?