Schools have been in session for a week. Have you spent any time with your kids going over their homework, or encouraging them to read?
Fewer parents do these days.
While Wisconsin students continue to rank near the top in national test scores, there also is much fretting over the education children are receiving. As school personnel and programs get squeezed by budget constraints, the tendency is to blame public schools for a national education system that continues to slip in comparison to others in the world.
And while school systems, personnel and governmental bodies share a large part of that responsibility, so, too, do parents.
In a recent study of parents' impact on the educational performance of school children, Michigan's Department of Education found: "The most consistent predictors of children's academic achievement and social adjustment are parent expectations of the child's academic attainment and satisfaction with their child's education at school. Parents of high-achieving students set higher standards for their children's educational activities."
This means parents should be more demanding of their students' teachers and school systems to challenge kids rather than simply trying to make them happy. Researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of Michigan found that parents preferred teachers who make their children happy over those who emphasize academic achievement.
Be the parent who challenges teachers to challenge your kids, not the parent who complains that work is too difficult, or there's too much of it, for your student.
Be the parent who makes their children get their homework done first, and correctly, before the TV is turned on or the video games are loaded. Nielsen Media Research reports that Americans ages 2 to 17 spend an average of three hours a day watching television - you can bet the same amount of time isn't spent on homework. A study of middle-schoolers published two years ago in Pediatrics journal found that weekday TV and video games strongly correlated with poor school performance.
Want another disheartening statistic? The National Endowment for the Arts last year reported that only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read for fun daily, a number that has been shrinking. And adults are setting an increasingly bad example. Americans aged 15 and over spent less than 22 minutes a day on voluntary reading of any kind, according to the report.
Be the parent that makes an effort, and sets a good example, for your student to do well in school. Make homework the top priority after school. Read with, or to, your kids. And push your school to push your kids.
Yes, budgets and school policies matter. But so do parents.
Fewer parents do these days.
While Wisconsin students continue to rank near the top in national test scores, there also is much fretting over the education children are receiving. As school personnel and programs get squeezed by budget constraints, the tendency is to blame public schools for a national education system that continues to slip in comparison to others in the world.
And while school systems, personnel and governmental bodies share a large part of that responsibility, so, too, do parents.
In a recent study of parents' impact on the educational performance of school children, Michigan's Department of Education found: "The most consistent predictors of children's academic achievement and social adjustment are parent expectations of the child's academic attainment and satisfaction with their child's education at school. Parents of high-achieving students set higher standards for their children's educational activities."
This means parents should be more demanding of their students' teachers and school systems to challenge kids rather than simply trying to make them happy. Researchers at Brigham Young University and the University of Michigan found that parents preferred teachers who make their children happy over those who emphasize academic achievement.
Be the parent who challenges teachers to challenge your kids, not the parent who complains that work is too difficult, or there's too much of it, for your student.
Be the parent who makes their children get their homework done first, and correctly, before the TV is turned on or the video games are loaded. Nielsen Media Research reports that Americans ages 2 to 17 spend an average of three hours a day watching television - you can bet the same amount of time isn't spent on homework. A study of middle-schoolers published two years ago in Pediatrics journal found that weekday TV and video games strongly correlated with poor school performance.
Want another disheartening statistic? The National Endowment for the Arts last year reported that only 30 percent of 13-year-olds read for fun daily, a number that has been shrinking. And adults are setting an increasingly bad example. Americans aged 15 and over spent less than 22 minutes a day on voluntary reading of any kind, according to the report.
Be the parent that makes an effort, and sets a good example, for your student to do well in school. Make homework the top priority after school. Read with, or to, your kids. And push your school to push your kids.
Yes, budgets and school policies matter. But so do parents.
