Where Does Education's Role End and a Parent's Begins?
I read Jerry Large's recent column in the Times and came away feeling confused and unsure of what I thought I just read. Maybe it's just ignorance on my part (and I'm willing to hear that if that's what you think).
Mr. Large was writing about a PBS special on Tuesday called "Too Important to Fail" with broadcaster Tavis Smiley. It was about the issue of black students and education. From the column:
The problem is bad, but it is not hopeless, it can be fixed, and we already know a lot about how to do that.
One of the educators Smiley interviewed laid out some of the statistics: a high-school dropout rate above 50 percent, and 85 percent don't read or do math at grade level in fourth-grade. He said that if white children faced those numbers, all hell would break loose.
Those two paragraphs confuse me because if we know how to solve the problem - to any degree - why are the
Mr. Large was writing about a PBS special on Tuesday called "Too Important to Fail" with broadcaster Tavis Smiley. It was about the issue of black students and education. From the column:
The problem is bad, but it is not hopeless, it can be fixed, and we already know a lot about how to do that.
One of the educators Smiley interviewed laid out some of the statistics: a high-school dropout rate above 50 percent, and 85 percent don't read or do math at grade level in fourth-grade. He said that if white children faced those numbers, all hell would break loose.
Those two paragraphs confuse me because if we know how to solve the problem - to any degree - why are the