Parental Report Cards Idea Deserves An "F" by Doug Wrenn

Parental Report Cards Idea Deserves An "F"

By Doug Wrenn

October 30, 2007

I recall an episode of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" in which adventurers plunged into the deep jungles of Africa with combat tanks to seek out and destroy a particular deadly insect. Not that long ago, there was also a frequently-played commercial on the radio for an insurance company that cited an ancient Chinese proverb that it is unwise to attempt to kill a fly on your friend's forehead with a hatchet (Or was it a mallet?). In the movie, "Wall Street," a successful, powerful, affluent, conniving, unscrupulous financial investor named Gordon Gekko (portrayed by Michael Douglas) teaches his young, ambitious protégé, Bud Fox (played by Charlie Sheen) about the value of acquiring information. Manchester, Connecticut school board member Steve Edwards wants to emulate the already failed Chicago experiment of teachers grading their students' parents by means of report cards. I presume that Mr. Edwards has never seen the Monty Python episode or heard the insurance commercial that I cited. However, I hope he has never seen "Wall Street," and if he has, I hope his striking resemblance to Gordon Gekko, perhaps not in physical appearance, but clearly in mindset, is merely coincidental.

I have three urban teachers in my family, two recently retired, and one just beginning that very noble career. I have heard all the stories. I have no illusions as to what teachers are now up against in terms of our failing society, eroded culture, violent crime, and seemingly contagious masses of broken and dysfunctional families. I understand Mr. Edwards's concerns, and I highly commend him for stepping up and trying to address the very substantial and problematic issues of tardy, unruly, unprepared and grossly neglected kids in Manchester's schools, and for that matter, schools everywhere today. Where Mr. Edwards and I part company, however, is on his proposed tactics to supposedly solve those problems.

Thanks to selectively protective teachers' unions ("Selectively protective," meaning more of the union members, and less of their precious charges), a highly flawed and federally unconstitutional social engineering plan called "No Child Left Behind," apparently ghost written by President Bush at the behest of the true author, Senator Ted Kennedy, and a liberal society that emphasizes throwing gobs of money at problems that instead require specific repairs, we have a protected culture of failing schools, inept teachers, and unprepared kids, more adept at passing tests than actually comprehending, learning and retaining the material of which they are being tested. Thus, education officials, as well as the bureaucrats who are charged with their oversight, are beginning to sweat under the heat of all those well-directed spotlights. As the saying goes, sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Grading parents is more than playing offensively; it's utterly offensive.

Schools have become homes, and teachers have become parents. Hillary Clinton was wrong; it does not take a village, but we are making her words prophetic, because much like water, we seek the path of least resistance. In black families especially, roughly 70% of kids have no Dad at home, and no, "Dad" is not Mom's boyfriend du' jour, and "Dad," like it or not, is more than just the accommodating sperm donor. In many families in which there are two parents, both work, not to keep bread on the table, but (grown-up) toys in the garage. Religious faith and traditional family values have been replaced by hedonistic and materialistic instant gratification, and as we become more secularized, our now roughly 50% divorce rate only flourishes. Single moms thus have little other recourse than to work. The end result is that some parents are genuinely poor, and others are just plain lazy. Families on government aid that can't afford bread, cold cuts, fruit, soft drinks and brown paper bags for Junior's weekly lunches often seem to have plenty of disposable income for cigarettes, booze, big screen TV's and sound systems that I certainly cannot afford. I know. I have been in many such homes many times. So government (via our dime) gives our kids lunch, because in many cases, Mom (and Dad, where applicable) have, made too many previous bad life decisions, and maybe still are doing so, so they relinquish control of their most precious gifts to Big Brother, "Here, you feed him!" The same parents also can't be bothered to teach and then consistently instill values to their kids, and in some cases, also demonstrate exemplary behavior for their ever-watchful and very impressionable kids to emulate, so in places like Portland, Maine, parents again relinquish control of their kids to "Mom & Dad Government," and let the schools provide birth control to the same 11 year-old kids who were never taught the primary form of birth control and safe sex, abstinence, because of that old, lame and convenient cop-out, "He or she is going to do it anyway." Yes, from such a "home," for lack of a better word, a child most assuredly will "do it anyway." And when Junior develops a permanent or possibly even deadly STD because we trust 11-year-olds to handle contraception devices that even many adults can't use properly, a life is ruined or even lost. If Little Missy gets pregnant, Mom takes her to an abortion clinic, then a life is lost again, or Little Missy has the baby, but now will probably live a life of poverty herself, as many underage mothers soon do. Many of them also later drop out of school, another high risk factor for lifetime poverty and a recipe for lifelong disaster and misery. By the way, remember before, when I mentioned "previous bad life decisions?"

Government is clearly not the answer. But God bless any teacher today. You could never pay me enough. Not that teachers are not now well paid; they often are, but what they have to deal with in these combat zones we now call schools, given the lack of resources and support teachers have to deal with, these mountainous issues are beyond any reasonable comprehension. All the social ills of our pathetically putrid society spill over into the schools via these poor kids. Back in my day, when we didn't see snooty bumper stickers pasted on the backs of high priced European cars that read, "Challenge Authority," the teacher was always right. Now, the kid is always right, and the teacher is a liar, a tyrant or an imbecile. Thanks to the all-too convenient kiddy-kennels called "daycare" today, many parents don't even see their kids much when they're still infants. From there, they go on to school, and parents see the kids on weekends and in the evening, maybe. Kids now are given plenty of activities to in which to immerse themselves, once parents find that they need more babysitters besides TV and video games. So the consequence of this not-so coincidental lack of attention is that teachers see kids more than their parents see them. Do the math. So Mommy and Daddy (where applicable), who nowadays often view their kids as either little trophies or enormous pests, either disbelieve the teacher's usually accurate observations because the parents have never witnessed such behavior from their kids, or their over-inflated egos of themselves and their fantasy perceptions of their enchanted little offspring cause them to remain in deep, concrete denial to the reported problems, and defiance to the offered solutions. And those are just the parents who even agree to talk to the teacher, or to show up at a parent-teacher conference or a school board meeting. In other words, "Here, you raise him, and don't bother me while you do it." As for the problems, they don't go away. Not only do those problems not go away, but they also interfere with what the teacher is trying to accomplish, and thus they also in turn impede the learning progress of the other kids, who are trapped in the same class with a problematic or miscreant peer. This situation is beyond being an ailment; it's an epidemic, and the healthy are soon consumed along with the sick.

OK, so it is well established that the problems are substantial, genuine, and on both sides of the coin. Problems should be addressed, however, and not catalogued like book titles under the Dewey Decimal System in a library. When teachers see problems, they should act on them, not log them in. Some parents who don't oversee their children's homework, or don't help them with it are too lazy, apathetic, or, maybe in the case of single mothers, legitimately too busy. Teachers should speak to the parents. Some parents may be ignorant and poorly educated themselves, and might feel overwhelmed by the kid's homework. Granted, the parent should first approach the teacher, but if Mohammad doesn't come to the mountain, then bring the mountain to Mohammad; the teacher should contact the parent, and if necessary, assist the student with extra work, tutoring, or whatever is required. Consistently tardy students also should be the subjects of warranted phone calls from teachers to parents, and in any cases where the parent is non-compliant or unresponsive, suspend Junior until the parent's attention is acquired. Like the farmer who motivated his mule to walk by smacking him across the snout with a 2 X 4 said, "You have to get his attention first." See what happens when these so-called parents actually are forced to act like parents. But the teachers need to be backed up by backbones, and not bureaucrats. Schools are entirely too weak, ineffectual and politically correct, and often not because of teachers, (or at least not the good ones) but because of spineless principals and superintendents who lack the will to rock the boat, or the desire to derail the gravy train. With all that incessant flow of naïve, utopian, liberal money comes the infiltration of subversive, socialist politics, kind of like dolphins accidentally caught in a tuna net. As for any abused child, or any child showing any semblance of neglect, such as showing up at school on a cold winter morning with no coat, teachers, just like any other citizen, can make a phone call to child welfare officials or the police of that given jurisdiction if they are uncomfortable speaking to the parents. Now why do we need report cards for parents again?

Cash in business transactions is about as welcome today as a hug and kiss from a leper. Try to rent a car, reserve a hotel room or book a plane ticket without your plastic. On-line transactions now increasingly also ask for that little three digit security code on the back of your credit card, the same "security code" which you are not supposed to give out to anyone. Try to obtain a bank loan or a driver's license without a Social Security number. Remember when that number was once actually only intended for Social Security? Cameras are popping up on street corners in London, England and even in Washington, D.C. They can also now be found along the sides of many inter-state highways, and for that matter, inside most retail stores. New federal legislation wants to mandate that all animals, pets, livestock, etc., be micro-chipped. Trust me, for those unacquainted or apathetic to the Book of Revelation in the Bible, some of you folks (not me) will be next to be branded with "the mark of the beast." Write a check, put your phone number, or worse yet, your driver's license number, on the back. Our federal authorities can now monitor all email and Internet activity, including this column as I write it. Then we have the audacity to call that infringement of liberty part of the "Patriot" Act. Indeed, if that is supposedly patriotism, it is only an act. We keep allowing illegal immigrants to invade our country, and dare not evict these trespassing foreign criminals, so instead, under the farce called "The Real ID Act, the real US citizens will have to be issued, and carry national ID cards. Some companies routinely bug their own phones and computers to prevent abuse from their under-worked employees. Cars, now like planes have "black boxes." Don't ever fear having to call 9-1-1 for help from your cell phone in an area of which you are unfamiliar. The Global Positioning System, or "GPS" will find you, and your rescuers will soon be on the way. Speaking of phones, if you expect the party at the other end to actually answer nowadays, you better not have your phone blocked from "Caller ID." Do you want to check on your own credit rating? No problem, just answer these 100 or so very personal questions. Oh, by the way, what was your maternal grandmother's maiden name again? Medical confidentiality? Not a problem, a new law called "HIPAA" will now protect that for you, but if expect to get actually hired for that great job, and actually get covered by that employer's insurance company for your benefits, you better sign this waiver first, right after you take this little cup into the rest room and, uh….follow the directions on the label. Don't forget to bring that once intimate specimen back for testing when you are done, uh….following those instructions.

OK, I could probably give you a couple thousand more examples but by now, you probably well have the gist. We can't even sip a cup of coffee nowadays without some spy from either the public or private sector looking, listening, monitoring, peering, taping, tapping, bugging, probing, testing or analyzing us, our activities, and yes, even our own very personal body fluids. Remember when George Orwell's classic story, "1984" was only fiction? Why, oh why then, would we even think of willfully handing over any more of our personal information, or knowingly let anyone, especially from any form of government, even record and store data relative to us? There is no need for this scourge of liberty. This is tyrannical control at worst, and a gross overkill to an otherwise genuine problem at the very least. And whatever the motive, be it benevolent or sinister, such willfully abdicated personal information and consensual tracking is highly conducive to abuse, and further eradication, albeit gradually, of even more, if not eventually all of our liberties. Our Air Force brass recently lost track of several armed and ready nuclear missiles on a plane flight across the country for several hours recently. Do we really want to trust this same ilk of all knowing, theoretically omnipotent but otherwise inept, bumbling bureaucratic boobs to make daily log entries concerning parenting skills, and then to grade parents accordingly? And to all this socialist lunacy, the real daunting question still begs to be asked, "What happens if a parent gets an 'F'?" Like the failing, rollicking frat-boys, majoring in partying in the movie, "Animal House," are they also to be put onto "double, secret probation," by some agenda-driven authoritarian ogre, like "Dean Wormer?" Or does some sanctimonious, elitist edu-crat then dictate the taking of a "failed" parent's kids away to some other government facility? The answer is possibly, although probably not initially. Don't laugh. Government is very patient and very methodical. As our liberties continue to erode and government abuse continues to rise, all the action is subtle and incremental, lest we, the ever fleeced and great unwashed, notice too much. As the Chinese say, "A long journey begins with the first step."

And what if the kids are taken from "failed" parents by potentially future empowered and militant edu-crats? In Portland, Maine, once parents sign permission slips for their kids to be evaluated in school health centers, the schools shut the parents off from any further information, and instead "encourage" these minors to keep their parents in the loop regarding their newly acquired and government subsidized invitations to increased sexual activity. In some jurisdictions, minors can receive abortions without consent of their parents. Liberals are funny creatures. They love chanting about the First Amendment, until our definition of "free speech" interferes with their agenda or your kids. Government is kind of like a cute, cuddly, playful little bear cub. For a while, it will gladly and innocuously eat any morsel you feed it from the palm of your hand, until one day it grows bigger from all of the excessive feeding, and then turns on you and consumes you as its next meal. If there is any truth whatsoever to the liberal propaganda about "evolution," it is far more likely and applicable to predatory government than it is to apes. (Did I just repeat myself?)

As with giving a drink to an alcoholic, there is not necessarily a real present danger to the concept of teachers grading parents. But both scenarios are similar with regard to the very potential, if not inevitable future risk. To the limited extent by which we can control the unpredictable future at all, our only hope for success is to first corral in the unchecked present.

I'm willing to give Mr. Edwards the benefit of the doubt that he is myopically proposing a bad idea from legitimately good intentions. For that matter, he is in fact, trying to solve a real problem that many of his peers throughout the country are quite otherwise content at maintaining the status quo. Some ideas need to be forwarded, others need to be refined, and still others need to be completely scrapped. At the very least for this situation, Mr. Edwards clearly needs to take his good intentions back to the drawing board.

But for now, I'm still giving him an "F" in Art class.