The Mom Factor vs. Helicoptering
Happy Mother’s Day! I hope all moms and families have a beautiful Sunday.
Isn’t it interesting that Mother’s Day and Teacher Appreciation Week are close together? Perhaps it is because teaching and nurturing children (no matter how old a child is) are similar. When mothers (and dads) unite with teachers, there is no end to the positive influence they can have on students and schools. Yet, often such nurturing becomes fodder for school reformers to accuse parents of helicoptering.
This CNN article about the Opt Out movement is a good example. The report from a year ago describes how many New York parents kept their students from taking the high-stakes standardized tests. The article itself is quite good.
But CNN prefaces it with a video by the author, journalist Kelly Wallace, who talks about parents who overstep boundaries and don’t let their children experience failure. She indirectly accuses parents of keeping their children from something better by not permitting them to take the tests. She wants them to stop being helicopter parents.
But are parents, especially moms, helicoptering when they stand against harmful school reforms?
- Are moms who keep their children from high-stakes testing helicopter parents? Or, are they savvy enough to realize the high-stakes testing scam is The Mom Factor vs. Helicoptering:
