I think parents are unaware of how little autonomy public school teachers have over what takes place in their classroom.
I have several friends and family members who work in education. They've fielded their share of complaints over the years. And when it comes to what's covered in the classrooms the kinds of angry complaints they field are almost always over stuff mandated by either the administration or a state-level standard. And when they (very politely) inform parents that they're required by law to learn about <some thing> you'd think the parents would be like "Oh my god that's terrible! I'm going to write my state rep right away!" NOPE - they just double down and seem to think its within the teacher's purview to eschew state requirements.
And the kind of stuff that parents find objectionable isn't even the stuff you're thinking - like maybe evolution, slavery, civil rights etc. Nope. One parent was upset her daughter had to learn that the US civil war was extremely bloody and demanded to know why this sort of "macabre information" was part of the unit as dwelling on such things does not prepare kids for college.
There is a cohort of parents that is involved (edit: in a healthy way) in their child’s education. There is another cohort that is looking for a babysitter. A bifurcation in path’s for these cohorts is about to occur.
For the former, parents of means will elect for private school. Parents of lesser means will either stretch for private school, or homeschool.
For the latter, I am at a loss of what will happen. Perhaps a lost generation.
The "Looking for a babysitter" parents aren't that bad assuming their kids are well behaved and make decent grades.
It's actually mixture of helicopter parents who are EXTREMELY invested in their kids education and troubled kids whose parents treat school like a daycare/repair shop for their kids that are the problem. A pox on both their houses etc etc
> helicopter parents who are EXTREMELY invested in their kids education
These folks confuse me, e.g. if they are that particular/knowledgeable/opinionated/demanding - then they should homeschool or tutor their kid themselves. Especially if we're talking public schools, they aren't paying some top dollar private school where they can demand some tuned experience for their child.
Home schooling is off the table for a lot of these parents as they're most likely both working professionals with demanding jobs OR they recognize they're not going to do a good job educating their kids past a certain level.
Private school might be off the table because the local public schools might have a better reputation than any nearby private. Why pay more to get less?
Sometimes you just get outliers. For example, there were some methods taught to my kids in elementary school as part of an emerging common core math curriculum that I disagreed with quite a bit.
I didn't take it to the school though because they were stuck in the middle of a state mandate and pissed off parents. I just helped my kids differentiate some of the more fundamental methods from helps/shortcuts (like sections on estimation).
I'm guessing there would be family situations where having a babysitter who is trained as a teacher beats home life.
PG tweeted data/commentary about childcare recently and there was a bit saying that for some brackets of society, dedicated care at home was most effective. But for some brackets, the children were better off in group childcare.
I read an article recently about Australian teachers who were quitting or thinking about it. None mentioned the pay, though I think it could be improved in places. Almost all however mentioned that lack of autonomy. They had more and more responsibilities, more pressure from parents, but less allowance for how they taught.
IMO, we should be grouping tasks by those which require a trained teacher and those which can be done by a trainee or some sort of clerk. There are surely tasks like preparing curriculum for remote learning, or marking (my mum was a teacher and as a teenager, I used to mark work for her), etc that could be done by an assistant split across multiple classes or a trainee. Or could be done remotely even. Spread the workload and ensure that the key interface between teacher and students gets the teacher's full time and attention.
I have several friends and family members who work in education. They've fielded their share of complaints over the years. And when it comes to what's covered in the classrooms the kinds of angry complaints they field are almost always over stuff mandated by either the administration or a state-level standard. And when they (very politely) inform parents that they're required by law to learn about <some thing> you'd think the parents would be like "Oh my god that's terrible! I'm going to write my state rep right away!" NOPE - they just double down and seem to think its within the teacher's purview to eschew state requirements.
And the kind of stuff that parents find objectionable isn't even the stuff you're thinking - like maybe evolution, slavery, civil rights etc. Nope. One parent was upset her daughter had to learn that the US civil war was extremely bloody and demanded to know why this sort of "macabre information" was part of the unit as dwelling on such things does not prepare kids for college.