NATION: Parents Know Best...Regarding Their Children's Education?

It seems that professional educators (i.e. teachers and professors) like to say how they are "all about the children", yet their actions often seem to say otherwise. It seems that the educator's job security and benefits trump any other consideration. OTOH, its hard to argue that parents have anything other than the best interests of their children at heart.

Parents Favor Standardized Testing: A recent survey by AP-NORC Center found that parents overwhelmingly favor standardized testing, both as a way to measure the progress of their own child, as well as a good way to measure the quality of both their child's school and their teachers. Read the AP-NORC parents survey here. AP-NORC home page - click here.

The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey was conducted June 21 through July 22, 2013 by NORC at the University of Chicago. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error overall of +/- 4.1% points.

Education union leaders have stood opposed to linking teacher evaluations with standardized tests, arguing it is unfair to punish teachers for students' shortcomings. They also say teachers have not had sufficient time to rewrite their lessons to reflect new academic benchmarks. Let's look at the poll results:

• 61% of parents think their children take an appropriate number of standardized tests and 26% think their children take too many tests.

• 75% of parents say standardized tests are a solid measure of their children’s abilities, and 69% say such exams are a good measure of the schools’ quality.

• 93% of parents say standardized tests should be used to identify areas where students need extra help. 

• 7% of all parents said they want to make it easier for school districts to fire teachers who aren't getting the job done.

• 55% of households with teachers said standardized test scores in general should NOT be used to evaluate teachers.

Having raised 2 children to adulthood through San Luis Coastal School District, and then UCDavis and UCSanta Barbara, we have some direct knowledge of the educational system in which our children participated. It was clear that the "better" schools in the district obtained higher test results. These results come from a combination of the students academic ability, their teacher's ability to teach, and their parents enforcement (or lack thereof) of academic discipline. The quality of our children's teachers seemed to have a significant impact on the quality of their education, though I have no way of quantifying this statement.

We felt that our children received a quality public education, both in K-12 and at the University of California. A huge key to K-12 success was parents enforcing respectful behavior from their student children towards the educational staff. San Luis Obispo county has a combination of low wage agriculture and hospitality industry jobs, combined with a highly educated Cal Poly SLO staff employee base.

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