John Burzichelli is right that parent involvement makes for better students, but judging teachers based on whether parents engage with the school is pure nonsense.
A-2732, Burzichelli’s bill, calls on the state education commissioner to create standards for parentla involvement on which teachers would be judged, which can include “the parent’s responsiveness to communications initiated by the teacher; the parent’s participation in parent-teacher conferences; the student’s completion rate for homework; and the parent’s responsiveness in returning documents requiring the parent’s signature.”
Got that? A teacher potentially is going to be held accountable for the speed with which a parent fills out paperwork and gets it back to the school or whether a parent actually shows up for a conference.
There seems to be some support for Burzichelli’s bill — based on this story in MyCentralJersey.com, though, the structure of the story and some of the quotations raise questions about just how committed any of the educators quoted are to the bill. The focus of the story is on the importance of parental involvement — nearly everyone quoted talks about it and I don’t think you would find anyone who would disagree that it is better to engage parents than to not do so. But little attention is paid in the story to the elephant in the room — exactly how will teachers hold parent’s feet to the fire” — at least not until the final paragraph.
MyCentralJersey.com quotes Bruce Titen, who is the supervisor of mathematics and a school leader at Plainfield’s Frank J. Hubbard Middle School. Titen “called parental involvement a “very taboo” subject,” though it is “the No. 1 indicator for academic achievement in 95 percent of students, especially at the elementary and middle school levels.” Does he support this kind of legislation? Hard to say, but he does offer this comment:
“The quote given to me from numerous administrators from the time I was teaching,” Titen said, “was we can’t talk about what the parents do or don’t do at home because it’s not something in our control as a school system.”
The story never says whether Titen agrees with these previous administrators or not, though it implies that he does. More telling is that this is the only mention of what is likely to be a massive logistical problem. Teachers cannot control whether parents get involved. They can reach out. They can make the effort. But if a parent doesn’t care or, more likely, doesn’t have the time because he or she has to work, what is the teacher supposed to do?
I just don’t see how you can hold a teacher accountable for the things that go on outside of the classroom. We know, for instance, that students who get a good night’s sleep perform better in school, as do students who have healthy diets. Should these things be included in teachers’ evaluations, as well? What about making sure that students live in safe neighborhoods or that their parents are not economically forced to work multiple jobs?
We should be letting teachers do what they do best: Teach students, engage with students. And we should make sure they have the tools they need — which include money and top-notch facilities. We shouldn’t be blaming them for society’s larger failures.
If the goal is engaged parents, then let’s focus on the parents by enacting policies that make it easier for parents to be available to be engaged, starting with a fair economy that treats all work as valuable.
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Hank Kalet 