Parents should focus on learning more than schools

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Dear Dr. Fournier:I just came from a school council meeting where parents were furious because of low achievement test scores. These are the same people that put stickers on their cars saying their child is an A student. How can you love your child's school one day and hate it the next? When they give our children good grades, they're great but when they flunk standardized tests, our schools are bad? ASSESSMENTGrades and achievement tests are both important. A law school student might have graduated with top honors and even been the editor of his school's law review but will not be able to practice law until he passes the state bar exam. The challenge lies in the fact that children must do well from day to day in the classroom yet they must be able to pass tests made by others from outside your child's school in order to be deemed a success. Neither of these accomplishments guarantees your child success as an adult because school systems and standardized test makers are operating on the 1940s structure of education in this country, which was designed for the industrial era.Your children must learn skills that are not being taught in schools, ones that will make them successful now and for the rest of their lives.WHAT TO DOHarper's magazine reports in the article "Figuratively Speaking" by John MacIntyre that 77 percent of parents of school aged youth say they are satisfied with their children's education. If this many people are happy, why do politicians and international studies indicate that our schools are so far below world standards? Obviously not everyone is happy. The same report says that the number decreases when adults in this country are asked the same question. Only 44 percent of this group is all right with primary and secondary education. That means 56 percent does not believe our school systems are producing well-educated young adults. Of course these are many of the people that are supposed to employ our kids when they are older, so we have to admit that their opinion counts. Strong American Schools chaired by former Colorado Governor Roy Romer found in 2004 that 33 percent of this country's high school graduates needed remedial courses in college. Even though they had the grades to get into college and may have passed the SAT or ACT, they did not have the elementary/high school skills to do college work! Furthermore, 29 percent of all students in four-year colleges and 43 percent of those in junior colleges needed remedial courses. In Oklahoma community colleges, four of every five students needed remedial courses. In the California State University system, three of every five needed remedial courses. Every one of those remedial students took courses in high school, passed those courses but learned close to nothing. Taxpayers are paying between 2.3 to 2.9 billion dollars a year to educate our children while college tuitions are increasing in part because colleges have to provide reeducation services - that is they have to teach high school (and sometimes elementary school all over again.The bottom line is that schools in our country are so busy teaching and trying to prove that they have taught by raising achievement scores that no one is watching the store. Schools are for children to learn. Do not let your child go to bed celebrating an A unless he or she can prove to you that they still know what was on that test one month after they received the grade. The system is fighting the wrong battle and losing the war. Focus your energy on making sure your child has learned and let the bureaucrats and "happy with their school " parents knock themselves out losing the war and their children's future as well. (Write Dr. Yvonne Fournier, Fournier Learning Strategies Inc., 5900 Poplar, Memphis, Tenn. 38119. E-mail her at drfournier(at)hfhw.net)