Want your kids to do well in school? Simple. Make a lot of money and get married - Want your kids to do well in school? Easy. Make decent money and have a steady home environment that includes mom and dad. You do those two things, and you’re well on your way to raising an educated child.
Note what I don’t mention up there: Money spent per pupil, teacher/student ratios, amount of homework given, quality of teachers, the overall curriculum and the dozens of other things educational administrators discuss when the topic of educational success comes up.
If you read between the lines, what it really comes down to is this: Give your kids a solid foundation and be an engaged parent.
By the way, I’m not just spitting out opinionated nonsense: I’ve got studies! In 2003, The Journal of Marriage and Family noted students in one-parent families fared significantly worse in math and science than students in two-parent households, and furthermore, a study that study cited showed students who lived in households with never-married single mothers did even worse.
Want your kids to do well in school? Simple. Make a lot of money and get married
And another study, by the Institute for Research on Poverty, showed a direct link between income and standardized test scores. An increase of a mere $1,000 in household income raised student test scores between 2.1 and 3.6 percent.
Money and family. A kid has those two things, he’s got all the head start he needs. Unfortunately, we can’t — or at least, don’t fully — legislate money and family, so we’re left to school administrators flailing about, trying to figure out ways to raise the educational standards.
For instance, take a look at the Hopewell Valley Regional school district, where a 45-person(!) committee is looking at homework, both the rate it’s given and the value it provides. And if the statements from HVRSD Superintendent Tom Smith are any indication, it appears homework in Hopewell is going to be cut back.
“It’s become clear, from conversations with parents, that kids are in so many after school activities, and we value developing the whole child,” said Dr. Smith. “So this homework discussion really is a discussion of what we value as a community.”
It should be noted the school district, according to Census records, has less than one percent of residents living below the poverty line, and of the households with a child under 18 living in them, over 90 percent of them are two-parent households.
So will a lessened homework schedule work there? Of course it will. Kids will probably do better because they won’t be stretched to the limit. Tough to concentrate on math problems after an afternoon of soccer and violin practice.
But imagine this “homework be gone!” idea in Trenton, where after school programs aren’t catching the kids, where there’s twice as many single parent households than married-with-children households and where 22 percent of the population is under the poverty line. (And here’s a wildly interesting stat: While 6.9 percent of married couples with school age children in Trenton are below the poverty line, 45 percent of single parent households fall below poverty level.) If homework was lessened in Trenton, I’d bet test scores and the like would also go do down.
Of course, homework is just one piece of the giant, pointless puzzle that constitutes our fight to make kids less stupid. Untold numbers of man hours and billions of dollars are poured down the education hole, and yet no one will recognize the simple fact that it just doesn’t matter. Kids with a solid home and with parents who live over the poverty line are simply better positioned to do well, and more often than not, will succeed in school.
And if you don’t believe me, run this thought experiment: Hopewell students do better than Trenton students, by every measure, from graduation rates to SAT scores. Is it because Hopewell students are inherently smarter? I say absolutely not. Switch every student at birth, and I’d bet the the numbers stay the same. The “Hopewell” kids would do well, the “Trenton” kids would not. Doing good in school is nurture, not nature, in the vast majority of cases, and if there’s no nurture at home, kids start out on the losing side.
So maybe instead of spending money on education, we should be spending money on keeping families together and making sure they have enough money in their pockets. To put it another way: I’m advocating Religious Right values (get married!) alongside lefty Commie propaganda (have to get people above poverty). In other words .... we’re doomed. ( trentonian.com )
Note what I don’t mention up there: Money spent per pupil, teacher/student ratios, amount of homework given, quality of teachers, the overall curriculum and the dozens of other things educational administrators discuss when the topic of educational success comes up.
If you read between the lines, what it really comes down to is this: Give your kids a solid foundation and be an engaged parent.
By the way, I’m not just spitting out opinionated nonsense: I’ve got studies! In 2003, The Journal of Marriage and Family noted students in one-parent families fared significantly worse in math and science than students in two-parent households, and furthermore, a study that study cited showed students who lived in households with never-married single mothers did even worse.
Want your kids to do well in school? Simple. Make a lot of money and get married
And another study, by the Institute for Research on Poverty, showed a direct link between income and standardized test scores. An increase of a mere $1,000 in household income raised student test scores between 2.1 and 3.6 percent.
Money and family. A kid has those two things, he’s got all the head start he needs. Unfortunately, we can’t — or at least, don’t fully — legislate money and family, so we’re left to school administrators flailing about, trying to figure out ways to raise the educational standards.
For instance, take a look at the Hopewell Valley Regional school district, where a 45-person(!) committee is looking at homework, both the rate it’s given and the value it provides. And if the statements from HVRSD Superintendent Tom Smith are any indication, it appears homework in Hopewell is going to be cut back.
“It’s become clear, from conversations with parents, that kids are in so many after school activities, and we value developing the whole child,” said Dr. Smith. “So this homework discussion really is a discussion of what we value as a community.”
It should be noted the school district, according to Census records, has less than one percent of residents living below the poverty line, and of the households with a child under 18 living in them, over 90 percent of them are two-parent households.
So will a lessened homework schedule work there? Of course it will. Kids will probably do better because they won’t be stretched to the limit. Tough to concentrate on math problems after an afternoon of soccer and violin practice.
But imagine this “homework be gone!” idea in Trenton, where after school programs aren’t catching the kids, where there’s twice as many single parent households than married-with-children households and where 22 percent of the population is under the poverty line. (And here’s a wildly interesting stat: While 6.9 percent of married couples with school age children in Trenton are below the poverty line, 45 percent of single parent households fall below poverty level.) If homework was lessened in Trenton, I’d bet test scores and the like would also go do down.
Of course, homework is just one piece of the giant, pointless puzzle that constitutes our fight to make kids less stupid. Untold numbers of man hours and billions of dollars are poured down the education hole, and yet no one will recognize the simple fact that it just doesn’t matter. Kids with a solid home and with parents who live over the poverty line are simply better positioned to do well, and more often than not, will succeed in school.
And if you don’t believe me, run this thought experiment: Hopewell students do better than Trenton students, by every measure, from graduation rates to SAT scores. Is it because Hopewell students are inherently smarter? I say absolutely not. Switch every student at birth, and I’d bet the the numbers stay the same. The “Hopewell” kids would do well, the “Trenton” kids would not. Doing good in school is nurture, not nature, in the vast majority of cases, and if there’s no nurture at home, kids start out on the losing side.
So maybe instead of spending money on education, we should be spending money on keeping families together and making sure they have enough money in their pockets. To put it another way: I’m advocating Religious Right values (get married!) alongside lefty Commie propaganda (have to get people above poverty). In other words .... we’re doomed. ( trentonian.com )
