Textbooks, and no excuses

Textbooks, and no excuses

Upon reading my column, "Being Open to Equity and Quality," a reader asks, "How can schools force parents and students to return textbooks?" Schools already know how to get students and parents to obey rules. There are sanctions in place that range from poor grades to withholding student transcripts. A school where a significant portion of the population flouts the rules has a much bigger problem than unreturned textbooks. That school is accepting and reinforcing failure. Schools that don't expect a high rate of textbook returns tend to be places where excuses are rampant for why children routinely ignore homework and parents blow off school conferences. These schools tend to have principals fluent in the language of woes but inarticulate about how to surmount them. None of this serves students well. Indeed, low expectations ensure our students' failure. A better question posed by the aforementioned reader would be how we move education from a passive acceptance of failure to a culture that actively rejects it. My answer would be to implement a rule of no excuses. Not from the School Board, from parents or from educators. Education funds are limited, teachers are overburdened and some parents work two jobs and go home tired at night. These are challenges, not excuses to abdicate our responsibilty to our children. Respond to Lynne.

Posted by Lynne Varner at 11:48 AM