The Most Important Factor

I stumbled upon the following quote from President Obama today:

"The single most important factor in determining [student] achievement is not the color of their skin or where they come from," says President Obama. "It's not who their parents are or how much money they have--it's who their teacher is."

I agree with the first part: neither colour of skin nor place of nativity is really all that important of a factor. I also agree with the middle of the second part: the amount of money one (or one's family) has is, by and large, relatively unimportant.

However, I wholeheartedly disagree with both the beginning and the end of the second part. As a teacher, I recognise that, yeah, I'm a pretty big deal when it comes to the whole education process. But I also realise that there are two people who are far more important than me when it comes to discussing a student's academic success. Those two people are the student's mother and father. And as we have not yet reached the stage in genetic research and development that we can really have test tube babies, I feel I can safely say that every child has a mother and a father.

These parents may be divorced. They may be unmarried. One or both may be deceased. But they all existed at one point. And while legal guardianship in many ways takes the place of a parent, I am one of those teachers who includes legal guardians when I say "parent". So I guess what I really mean is "parental figure".

Regardless of the semantics, I thin that a child's parents are the most important factor when it comes to gauging a student's success. I think of all the students I have worked with, been in class with, or have simply known, and I suddenly realise that they all have one thing in common: by and large, successful students have parents who are actively engaged in seeing their child(ren) succeed.

President Obama, yes, we need highly skilled, highly trained, and highly dedicated teachers in the classroom. But we also need highly dedicated parents outside of the classroom. After all, children spend something like eight hours (give or take) each day in school. Take away all the time for lunches, recesses, extracurriculars, physical education, art, music, etc. and, if we are talking about a self-contained classroom, they see their teacher for maybe five or six hours a day. The rest of the time, they are with someone else. And a lot of that time with someone else is spent at home.

So, Mr. President, let's put the pressure  on teachers to do what teachers are supposed to do. But let's also start putting the pressure on parents to do what they are supposed to do.