Burden Falls on School Officials

We agree that improved teacher salaries and more parental responsibility are a good start for improving education in Arkansas. We also agree that it’s counterproductive for educators to continue blaming parents, and vice versa, for the shortcomings of students.

So what’s the stop-gap?

Administrators at the local level, and bureaucrats at the Arkansas Department of Education, have to start standing behind teachers when it comes to dealing with the parents of problematic or subperforming students.

If your front-line personnel can’t be trusted, then it’s time to find some new teachers who can be. Undercutting teacher authority to avoid the political headache of holding back a child who either can’t, or won’t, “make the grade” is the most destructive practice in education today.

It’s widely accepted that passing students who are deficient in core areas is most harmful to the students. But the pressure on teachers to keep every kid up to speed is enormous. So shouldn’t there be equal pressure on administrators to make sure that those who pass truly deserve to do so?

There are two things that would greatly improve education: more administrative backbone and less least-common-denominator standards.