Testing features prominently in this article about the raising of academic standards - and parental stress - in Massachusetts:
Making sure a student stays above the pack requires more active parenting than ever before, say parents and educators. Waiting lists are growing at the best private schools, public schools now require students to pass a state standardized test to graduate, and graduates of any high school face increasingly intense competition to get into college.
Parents across Massachusetts say they are taking extra measures to get involved in their children's education. Some secure MCAS test questions for review at home or consult a college application coach...
''Just keeping your kid afloat requires an overwhelming amount of parental support," said Jane Frantz, whose three sons graduated from Newton North High School, the youngest last month. ''Academically, there's so much more work now. That's driving an increase in how involved parents feel they need to be."
Is that really true? Or was there such a decline in parental involvement in the 1970's and 1980's that this is just the pendulum swinging back? Do these parents who hire tutors work harder than parents who homeschool? Is the school system just so complicated nowadays that even a stay-at-home parent will feel overwhelmed? Or are teachers so inefficient that parents now feel compelled to hire tutors in every class?
Given that I'm not a parent, nor am I involved with a K12 system, I don't really have answers for these rhetorical questions. I'd love to hear your point of view in the comments section.
The obligatory "competitiveness/anxiety" meme appears shortly thereafter in the article, but the first example given doesn't sound like a description of a concerned parent to me:
The competitive academic climate also fuels an overzealousness that some school officials say is dangerous for students and their families. One elementary school principal said he has seen a rise during the past three years in the number of parents suspected of doing their child's homework for them, or at least helping more than they should.
Those aren't overzealous parents, nor pushy parents, nor competitive parents. Those are dishonest parents. If a parent really wanted their kid to do well later on, why would they help them cheat at this level? This, to me, does not so much spell a rise in competitiveness among parents as a decline in character.
One of my commenters said, on a cheating post of mine, that cheating might be on the rise because a college degree is now seen not as a growth process, and something you earn, but something you simply have to get to be able to get what you want later on. Parents who help elementary school students cheat are reinforcing the idea that grades matter more than learning, which is not the same thing as being a concerned, or even pushy, parent.
Posted by kswygert at July 26, 2004 02:02 PM