As Racine Unified Cuts Back, are Parents Losing Faith?

In the business world, companies that do not make enough profit close down because the number one goal of business is to make money. In the world of public schools, weak schools rarely close down even when performance evaluations indicate that they are not hitting the goal of educating our children.

RUSD is where so many of our children attend school and with the talks of budget cuts, shortfalls to the students, changes in administration – well all that is proving to be too much for some parents, who have decided to take matters back into their own hands. They fear that the school district may fail to meet their child’s educational need.

I’ve heard there are several parents moving their children to private schools and some to different districts. This is nothing unique. But it should mean more when parents, who believed in their local schools, no longer feel these schools are the best place for their children.

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that private school enrollment has been growing at a faster rate than public schools for nearly two decades, a pattern that shows no sign of abating. In addition, the number of home schoolers -- who are not included in the private school enrollment figures -- has reportedly doubled in the last several years to 2 million.

When America, which is hands down the education spendthrift of the world, continues to routinely produce students that score in the lower echelons of international standardized math and science tests (as happened again this past year), then the answer must be something other than money. This is especially evident when such relatively poverty-stricken former communist countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Ukraine, and Hungary have all managed to eclipse us.

It should be noted that these tests have typically found that even the best American students are not on the same level as their counterparts in most industrialized countries -- thus discrediting the favorite dodge that we do poorly because "we educate everyone, while other countries only educate their elite."

There are huge advantages and disadvantages in many schools, and, again, I truly believe it comes down to your knowledge of your child. After reviewing test scores, and the result for hundreds of possible schools, it is apparent to me that exchanging "OK" for "slightly better" is pointless. I am a firm believer in public schools, especially after my visits to all the local middle schools. Still, I remain optimistic because parental involvement and a strong community that values education will prevail for my family.

Do you see a link between parent involvement and the quality of your child's education?