Wonderful comment from Stacy

My friend (and former publishing colleague) Stacy was among those having trouble commenting to posts, so she sent this to me via e-mail. It's great, so I wanted to share it with y'all.

"I'm loving your blog.

"Your riff on student responsibility hit home, but I have to say I put more blame on the parents than the kids. Parents, starting in, oh, I don't known, preschool, maybe, insulate their children from reality in all forms, up to and including assessment. 'No, dear, Johnny isn't smarter than you because he can read already -- his mom's just pushing him too hard.' 'Honey, you're just too bright for this class. That's why it's boring.' 'A B+? That's ridiculous. I'll talk to the teacher. And while I'm over there, I'm going to see about waiving you into the higher math class.' Boards of Ed aid and abet parents in this well-meaning pie in the sky of self-esteem: Ya gotta please the constituents. 'We HAVE to introduce sentence structure in kindergarten! The parents are demanding it!' 'We don't have enough in the budget for an extra teacher, Superintendent Jones. All the schools in the other
district have SmartBoards, and we have to buy them, too!' 'Yes, Mr. Duncan. In first grade we offer Spanish, art, music, computer literacy, and special media.' 'For children planning to apply to the most rigorous colleges, we offer A.P. courses in 45 subjects, including Whale Bones of Yesteryear and Redefining the Pixel.'

"The current environment, in which college admission, interesting work, and high salaries are perceived as scarce resources, only serves to exacerbate parental anxiety. At the same, the government (allow me to take a short ride on the high horse of politics and money), which I
would argue would be more effective working to regulate the legal, banking, or health care industry, took the lazy way out and decided to focus on that old chestnut: 'The children.' So we have No Child Left Standing and a host of legislation that forces teachers to focus more on what comes out of a kid than what goes in. Which we all know shortchanges the student and leads, paradoxically, to worse outcomes. Why, I'd say it's socialized education if I weren't afraid of sounding
like a neocon.

"At the same time, teachers, who in the ideal world would have more time to actually teach, are put in the awkward position of being educational gatekeepers, the magic door to that coveted 'A.' They thus become obstacles to be scaled, not the precious resources they are. (Or they
can be. Yes, we've had a few doozies. Remind me to tell you about the year Tyler taught himself Chemistry.) Now of course lot of parents (like me; here comes a big spoonful of parental self-justification) want their kids in the highest level classes because that's where students not only practice critical thinking, but also have the ability to 1) sit sill, 2) do their homework, and 3) bring something interesting to the table. These kids also bring out the best in the teachers. I found it fascinating to watch as Tyler (now 20) actually got better grades in English every year as he -- irritated at the lack of responsiveness of his fellow students -- pushed himself from English B to English A, skipping Honors and testing himself into A.P.

"None of this will come to a surprise to educators. The architects of public education in the 21st century have left no place nor plan for kids who are fidgety or prideful or have a difficult time focusing -- it just shoves them down the pecking order. I suppose in that sense you
can't "blame" the parents for trying to work a system that doesn't work for so many kids.
Heck, sure you can. I blame us all for not calling a spade a spade and reforming education. So public schooling becomes more bureaucratized/politicized, and people who can opt out system do,
weakening it further. Their kids enjoy smaller class sizes, high expectations, and (along with parental pressure), a big dose of parental support. Listen to Libertarian radio sometime. You'd think public schools were part of some Matrix-like plot. I see education as a three-pronged partnership: Teachers, children, and society (which these days mostly means parents). From my seat here in suburban Connecticut, I'd say society is dropping the ball and expecting teachers to pick it up."

Hooray, Stacy. Yes, and yes, and yes.