Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog had a range of reaction to a new Harvard study that found U.S. 15-year-olds with college-educated parents do not perform as well as their peers in other countries. Georgia teens of highly educated families lagged behind not only their peers abroad, but in other states. Here is a sampling of reader responses:
Posa: Do other countries allow disruptive children to remain in class? Are students of all abilities in the same classroom? Are teachers differentiating and documenting differentiation/enrichment strategies for every student? What are the homework policies? Is late work accepted without penalty? How much time and funding is spent educating children with disabilities as compared to children without and/or gifted? Just wondering if we are comparing apples and oranges. In my opinion, our education system is doing an amazing job despite the myriad challenges imposed by well-intentioned politicians and judges. Anyone who believes the fix is to raise expectations for achievement without addressing any aforementioned discrepancies is a fool who hasn't been working in a classroom.
Milton Reader: Students will not learn unless motivated by their parents, rich or poor. I have seen both succeed, but only through personal drive and personal accountability. Too often a child is "excused" from learning because he/she does not like the teacher, does not want to do the at-home assignments, and/or does not want to focus on learning in class. Wake up and get a bite of the real world. These types of parents will get the child they have reared: a child who may have been fundamentally bright, but will most certainly struggle in college (if accepted) and will likely lose his or her HOPE scholarship.
MugofJoe: Not every student, but increasingly more, of the Grady High School students in Atlanta head off to college and learn they are under-prepared for college, with several washing out or losing scholarships. However, this is not something that can be publicly shared without finding your name and reputation ruined. Just ask the few parents who dared write in and support the superintendent's decision to change leadership at the school. It seems that we can only brag about Grady. If this is happening at Grady under the noses of many Ivy League educated parents (some of whom teach at Emory or Tech), then we have to really wonder what is happening at other schools in APS that may not have this cohort of educated parents.
Starik: The state superintendent races seem to be a rare opportunity to express voters' satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. Common Core may or not be flawed, but it's a start. As a parent, I can move to a good school district and a good attendance zone within the district. I can also vote for politicians who support change.
Eulb: This study lumps public and private schools together and concludes U.S. schools are doing a lousy job of preparing students; even the "advantaged" students are not getting good educations in the U.S. As the parent of a recent graduate from APS, I can attest that even advantaged students are graduating unprepared from this public school system. I assumed that private schools were doing a much better job than public schools. This study indicates "no." That surprised me.
