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Thursday, July 24, 2008
Ken Blackwell :: Townhall.com Columnist
In Quality Education Family Matters
by Ken Blackwell
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Ms. Weingartens proposal would swell schools to an unprecedented role in community life. She is mistaken in thinking schools are a suitable replacement for family and church functions. Schools that lack the parent-child dynamic and prohibit faith-informed dialogue cannot fill the void of the traditional family and community church.

Even Ms. Weingartens distaste for customary family and church roles does not blind her to their benefits for students. The positive effect of those institutions is firmly substantiated in the social sciences.

Mapping America, a project of the Family Research Council, catalogues the societal effects of family and church. It has examined high school grade point averages in America, using data from the National Longitudinal Sample of Adolescent Health.

Regarding the family, Mapping America finds, Students who live with their married biological parents carry the highest combined GPA for English and math. Living with a stepparent, divorced parent, or cohabiting parents decreased the GPA by three tenths of a point in the 16,000 student sample. Living with never-married parents or cohabiting adults, only one of whom is a biological parent, decreased the GPA a further tenth of a point.

Church attendance is also significant. Students who attend religious services at least weekly have an average GPA of 2.9, whereas those who never attend drop by three percentage points. In the middle, those who attend at least monthly and less than monthly score 2.8 and 2.7, respectively.

When family structure and church attendance are combined, the results are even more striking. Students from intact families who worship at least monthly average a GPA of 2.9, but students from broken families who worship less score only 2.5.

Senators McCain and Obama would do well to heed in their education policies the demonstrated importance of the family and church. Increased school choice and financial support may well be part of the answer, but the foundation for healthy childrens education is institutional strength in the family and church.

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About The Author
Mr. Blackwell, a contributing editor at Townhall.com, is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and American Civil Rights Union.
 
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Reply # 1
Date: Jul 24, 2008 - 10:57 PM EST
the philosophy of accountablility
edna wrote:

"Schools administration and teachers need to be held accountable as homeschool parents…"

What do you mean? Do you mean the government should stop being hypocritical and hold itself to the same standards as regulated homeschoolers? Are you saying that government regulation of homeschoolers is good and that same regulation would be good for government institutions? (I'm not sure I explained the difference between those two questions clearly.)

I think there does need to be a conversation about accountability, but I think it needs to be made on behalf of the taxpayers and parents. I think it should go like this:

1. Children are the responsibility of their parents. That responsibility includes seeing to it that each of their children is educated.

2. If a parent chooses to hire someone to educate their children on the parents' behalf, the parent must pay for it. (Either through taxes to the public system, through tuition to another institution, or by hiring a tutor.)

3. Anyone educating a child (private institution, government institution or private tutor) is accountable to the parent who hired them.

4. If taxpayers are communally hiring a government institution to educate children, there must be an accounting to the taxpayers for the academic performance of the children.

That's why regulation of homeschoolers is not necessary. The parent already knows how the child is doing academically. The parent is footing the bill themselves-not spending other people's money for a service.

Private schools are educating students whose parents voluntarily send their children there and can at any time remove them and send them elsewhere (in theory, anyway) and that's a real form of accountability.

What type of accountability mechanism can be implemented in government schools on behalf of parents whose children they educate and to the taxpayers who have hired them?
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Reply # 2
Date: Jul 24, 2008 - 8:34 PM EST
Subject: Edna in NC
Edna, you rock!

I'd also recommend adding school uniforms to all public schools. This is something that I hated the idea of when I was in school, but it would have helped. It levels the playing field a little between the rich and poor kids. It would also keep out gang colors and things like that.
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