To the Editor of "The Crisis"
To the Editor of "The Crisis":
We read with great interest your "Back to School," issue of The Crisis. The piece on the "Million More Movement," and "Parental Guidance," lifted us with hope. Each article captured the importance of the partnership necessary between home and school -- prerequisites that are paramount for high student achievement. Yet with that said, lacking somewhat in the stories was the importance of the educator in the learning and achievement equation. As an African-American educator and parent of 11 year-old and 9 year-old children, my wife and I are clear about the importance of our role. In fact we have seen our 11 year-old son go from the 25th percentile in reading during his year in 4th grade to the 95th percentile at the 6th grade level, and that was on graduation from the 5th grade. What we did as parents to help our son make the more than two standard deviation jump is: hired a tutor one day a week, and instituted what we call in our home on a daily basis, 30/30/30/30/30, i.e., 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of math, 30 minutes of exercise, 30 minutes of instrument practice, and 30 minutes of keyboard computer instruction. Combined with his studies at a caring school, our son has made an easy transition into middle school this year.
Yet the fact remains in communities such as Harlem, New York, where Drs. Canada and Gordon do their incredible work, many parents I used to meet with when I was a teacher in Harlem, did not have the time to institute a home strategy described above. The fact was that the single parents I worked with in Harlem often held two or three jobs, and just were not home sufficiently to meet the needs of the children they love. And this is where I take issue with a point made in "Parental Guidance," namely "...faculty members at Promise Academy lure parents by offering food and raffling off music...If that doesn't work, they call once a day until the parent comes to the school to meet with teachers." I deeply appreciate the motivation in the action, but there are those times that rather than expecting the parents to come to the school, it is necessary for the educator to go to the home, during a time when the parent(s) is/are home. This is what I had to do after school, so that I would catch the parent prior to their leaving home for a second job. Or I often had to do it on a Saturday or even a Sunday.
And, as readers might know, there are parents one never will be able to locate or meet. For children in homes where parents are just too busy or disengaged, they remain reliant on the schools to fill the gaps caused by their challenged family circumstances. Many schoolchildren and youth struggling with poverty, face daunting life challenges, and in spite of these challenges, we have seen thousands of students succeed because of high quality teaching provided by educators. Poverty we have learned does not have to be destiny. School reliant schoolchildren and youth must have highly qualified teachers in their classrooms. In Seattle, for example, research conducted by the school system has found that African American students who have been part of systemwide literacy training for a period of two-year period or more, double the achievement of African American students not served by literacy-trained teachers. There is more data which can be cited, however, suffice it to say, that the research is clear that the single most important in-school factor related to student achievement remains the teacher.
Eric J. Cooper
President,
National Urban Alliance for Effective Education
Lake Success, New York
We read with great interest your "Back to School," issue of The Crisis. The piece on the "Million More Movement," and "Parental Guidance," lifted us with hope. Each article captured the importance of the partnership necessary between home and school -- prerequisites that are paramount for high student achievement. Yet with that said, lacking somewhat in the stories was the importance of the educator in the learning and achievement equation. As an African-American educator and parent of 11 year-old and 9 year-old children, my wife and I are clear about the importance of our role. In fact we have seen our 11 year-old son go from the 25th percentile in reading during his year in 4th grade to the 95th percentile at the 6th grade level, and that was on graduation from the 5th grade. What we did as parents to help our son make the more than two standard deviation jump is: hired a tutor one day a week, and instituted what we call in our home on a daily basis, 30/30/30/30/30, i.e., 30 minutes of reading, 30 minutes of math, 30 minutes of exercise, 30 minutes of instrument practice, and 30 minutes of keyboard computer instruction. Combined with his studies at a caring school, our son has made an easy transition into middle school this year.
Yet the fact remains in communities such as Harlem, New York, where Drs. Canada and Gordon do their incredible work, many parents I used to meet with when I was a teacher in Harlem, did not have the time to institute a home strategy described above. The fact was that the single parents I worked with in Harlem often held two or three jobs, and just were not home sufficiently to meet the needs of the children they love. And this is where I take issue with a point made in "Parental Guidance," namely "...faculty members at Promise Academy lure parents by offering food and raffling off music...If that doesn't work, they call once a day until the parent comes to the school to meet with teachers." I deeply appreciate the motivation in the action, but there are those times that rather than expecting the parents to come to the school, it is necessary for the educator to go to the home, during a time when the parent(s) is/are home. This is what I had to do after school, so that I would catch the parent prior to their leaving home for a second job. Or I often had to do it on a Saturday or even a Sunday.
And, as readers might know, there are parents one never will be able to locate or meet. For children in homes where parents are just too busy or disengaged, they remain reliant on the schools to fill the gaps caused by their challenged family circumstances. Many schoolchildren and youth struggling with poverty, face daunting life challenges, and in spite of these challenges, we have seen thousands of students succeed because of high quality teaching provided by educators. Poverty we have learned does not have to be destiny. School reliant schoolchildren and youth must have highly qualified teachers in their classrooms. In Seattle, for example, research conducted by the school system has found that African American students who have been part of systemwide literacy training for a period of two-year period or more, double the achievement of African American students not served by literacy-trained teachers. There is more data which can be cited, however, suffice it to say, that the research is clear that the single most important in-school factor related to student achievement remains the teacher.
Eric J. Cooper
President,
National Urban Alliance for Effective Education
Lake Success, New York
posted by Eric J. Cooper at 7:45 AM
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