Raising The Bar

There is a good article in Friday's Wall Street Journal which highlights the impact parents have on a students quality of education.  Highlights are below, but it is worth reading the full article at:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121996426389881371.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Raising the Bar: How Parents Can Fix Education
By DANIEL AKST

August 29, 2008; Page W9

Everyone, it seems, has a complaint about the schools. Indifferent bureaucracy, change-averse unions, faddish curricula, soaring school taxes matched with mediocre student performance -- the list is long and seemingly unchanging.

At the start of yet another school year, it's time for some radical change in your local schools -- a specific change that only parents can bring about. It's a thing already being done in some far-off countries but that remains strangely rare here in America. It's something I've tried -- and, despite the skepticism of friends and neighbors, it seems to work.

Heidi Stevens

What is this miracle that lies within the reach of nearly every family? It's simple. All you have to do is to start insisting that your children fully apply themselves to their studies -- and commit yourself to doing your part. That means making sure they do all the work expected of them as well as their abilities allow. It also means making sure everything at home stands behind these principles and supports the idea of learning.

These will sound like obvious ideas. In fact, given all the distractions of modern life, it is a radical departure from the normal order of things. Let's face it: More than budgets or bureaucrats, more than textbooks or teachers, parents are the reason that kids perform as they do in school...... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121996426389881371.html?mod=googlenews_wsj