For a day of celebration and catharsis, President Barack Obama's inaugural address struck tones both somber and sober. But his message was powerful: regarding the economy and our state of politics, we all got ourselves into this mess, and now we're all responsible for getting ourselves out. Or, as George Will put it, "Americans do not just have a problem, they are a problem." No more finger-pointing, Obama seemed to imply. As Michael Jackson once sang, "if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change."
If taken seriously, this idea of "be the change" could transform the education policy debate. Because the most important unsaid assumption of all of us in the "conversation," whether on the right, left, or center, is that many parents will be irresponsible in the raising of their children--and that there's nothing that policymakers can do about it. And thus schools--or schools plus other social service agencies--will need to remediate.
But maybe it's time to challenge that assumption. Perhaps we'll never reach "100 percent parental responsibility," just like we'll never reach "100 percent proficiency" in reading and math. But maybe, just maybe, we could do dramatically better than we are today in getting parents to show up for their job as their child's first and most important teacher.
Barack Obama has been talking about this all along. Back in May, when he introduced the idea of a "new era of mutual responsibility in education," he said:
There is no program and no policy that can substitute for a parent who is involved in their child's education from day one. There is no substitute for a parent who will make sure their children are in school on time and help them with their homework after dinner and attend those parent-teacher conferences... And I have no doubt that we will still be talking about these problems in the next century if we do not have parents who are willing to turn off the TV once in awhile and put away the video games and read to their child. Responsibility for our children's education has to start at home. We have to set high standards for them and spend time with them and love them. We have to hold ourselves accountable.
It would be easy to dismiss this talk as just "campaign rhetoric." But what if we took it seriously? Must we accept that there's nothing policymakers can do to encourage parents to take more responsibility for their children's education? It's incredibly exciting to have a president using his bully pulpit to make this argument; what can we do to support him in this cause? If KIPP schools can get 10,000 parents to sign a contract promising to be full partners in the learning process, what can all of our schools do to make 100 million parents do the same? If you have ideas, please post them below.
