There isn’t one part of life that hasn’t been turned upside down, tossed sideways, and then back to what is being referred to as ‘post Covid normal.’ However, that doesn’t really seem to exist, at least not yet because the pandemic is far from over. We seemingly hit plateaus and then the cases start surging again, deaths follow, and new mandates are set into place.
Unfortunately, this has left school age children in a place where children should never be, a world of uncertainty. As a result, a growing number of parents are trying to take matters into their own hands by homeschooling their kids, and this may be a viable solution but, without direction, we may be dooming those kids to academic failure later in life. What is the answer then? The solution may not be exactly what you’d expect it to be.
A Hint of What Is to Come
Before getting into any real substance, it might be important to mention that there is one key ‘player’ in all that is to follow. Every idea for homeschooling children on a major scale would necessitate a program superintendent appointed on a county or district level. The actual classes would still be taught by parents who would be responsible for reporting to the county as they do now but the only real difference is that this type of program would be instituted in a way that would enable a greater number of children to be “homeschooled” outside the traditional on-campus classroom setting.
The superintendent would need to be an educator with a requisite number of years in the field and ideally one who has earned a Doctor of Education degree with an emphasis in Educational Leadership and Organizational Innovation such as the degree offered at Marymount EdD graduate school. It will become apparent why this position should be held by a Doctor of Education but for the time being, so as not to create any confusion, it is important to understand that what is being suggested is a school system within a school system.
From a Financial Perspective
In the past, it has really only been a select few parents who had the wherewithal to homeschool their children. Most families in the current financial climate see both parents working outside the home and so there is no way to keep kids at home. Their only alternative, like it or not, is to send their children to public schools. Some do find a way to pay tuition to private schools, but again, those numbers are limited.
The Covid Factor
For more than a year, schools have been shutting their doors due to the number of Covid positive children and staff and then there are times when governors shut down schools in the entire state because of the pandemic. Each school district sets its own guidelines as to when students can return unless the governor has issued the mandate. Sometimes it’s only a single class that is sent home to quarantine and other times its several grades, depending on which classes have at least one student or teacher out after testing positive.
To put it bluntly, it’s a mess. There doesn’t seem to be a system-wide protocol for dealing with the virus and when schools shut down, the parents are left in a quandary. Here again, most parents don’t have the option to keep their children at home for homeschooling because they work outside the home. This rolls over to days when kids are sent home to quarantine and it’s a rollercoaster ride at best.
Homeschooling: Working within or Outside the System?
For those parents who have the support and financial means to work outside the system, there doesn’t seem to be an issue. However, for those parents who desperately rely on the public school system to educate their children, working within the system seems to be the best option, but how? How would this be possible since homeschooling, by its very nature, implies not attending traditional classes?
Over the years, ideas have been tossed around but there doesn’t seem to be a school district that adopted one of the more innovative solutions. Some parents felt that it would be possible to work a schedule where they were only responsible to be in class one day out of every ten. That would place ten children in a homeschool environment in which each parent was scheduled to take one day every other week. Where the kids would meet was discussed and working contracts with employers was also a topic of discussion but without backing from the district, those ideas quickly fell apart.
Appoint a County-Wide Homeschool Superintendent?
Perhaps a school system within a school system ‘could’ work if there was a homeschool superintendent named within a county. Many counties already have a homeschooling director or department to which parents submit reports on what their children have studied and grades they earned. This is a different model from what a county-wide homeschooling department would be.
In this model, homeschooling would be set up much like remote education except that a parent would be the facilitator/instructor of the day. The district would create the course work for each grade level and establish key objectives each grade level would master. Again, the only difference is in the class moderator because it would be an unpaid post assigned to a parent on a regular schedule.
How Is This Different from a Traditional Classroom Setting?
At this point, you are probably wondering how this is different from a classroom setting where there would be 30 kids instead of 10. The difference is in the ‘why’ not the how. These kids would be grouped together because of issues their parents have with the way in which the coronavirus and vaccines are treated in the county. While younger, elementary students are still not being approved for the vaccines, it is imminent and there are still a huge number of parents unwilling to have their kids get vaccinated.
These parents are not the group who believe in refusing all restrictions; they are simply unwilling to force their children to get vaccinated because they still haven’t seen evidence that it is 100% safe. If their children won’t be allowed on campus unless they are vaccinated, then they are willing to lose a job rather than enforcing a vaccine on a child. Then there are other parents who aren’t happy with the politicizing of the pandemic and others still who have ethical issues and are unwilling to have their children taught by schools who are in direct opposition to what they believe as a family. These are the kids who are being left behind and it was clearly the result of the pandemic that brought these extreme differences in ideologies to light.
What If There Hadn’t Been a Pandemic?
Before SARS-CoV-2, there were really few students being homeschooled comparatively. Some areas of the nation had larger pockets of homeschoolers than others, but for the most part, homeschooling wasn’t as big as it is today. Those who chose to homeschool their children usually did so for one of two reasons. The first reason, and probably the most predominant, would be violence in the schools. Each year the number of school shootings increases and many parents, as a result, are simply not comfortable sending their children to school where violence can break out at any moment.
Then there are those who aren’t happy with the level of education in the United States. This would take entire volumes to address, but it is all part of a decades long assertion that our students are not performing as well as kids are in other developed nations, and the question became, why? The rise in homeschooling actually began just prior to the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and has continued to gain momentum from there. Perhaps the best way to explain how the pandemic once again brought our failing school system into focus was when schools were shuttered, and parents had to begin helping them with remote access.
Shedding Light on a Bit of History
To say that the problem with a decline in education began with the No Child Left Behind Act would not be accurate. NCLB actually came about in response to a marked decline in the US educational system. For eight years, NCLB struggled to boost performance within certain groups such as those learning English as a second language and students within special education. Minority and poor children who traditionally are poor achievers were the focus as well. Unfortunately, NCLB failed miserably, and this is how Common Core came about, which was also doomed to failure, and is perhaps the one bit of legislation that both the left and right can agree upon.
The thrust of Common Core was to give students exactly that, a ‘common core with standardized tests’ in which students were, for all intents and purposes, measured against each other. However, part of the failure was in the fact that there really was no common core! States were given the authority to set their own standards and measurements so that when it became necessary for a national assessment, the results were all over the place. As mentioned above, this is perhaps the one thing that the warring Liberals and Conservatives could agree on. Both parties agreed that Common Core was a failure and in working with their children, many for the first time, parents came to see the folly of it as well. These are also the parents who are seeking educational refuge in a home-schooling environment.
Could a Global Pandemic Be the Salvation of Our System of Education?
At the moment, this seems to be the $64 billion question! Perhaps if more power is given to parents, a more comprehensive system could be instituted that would give students an opportunity to excel at subjects that interest them. A ‘common core’ is good, but only so far as it offers a strong foundation in a core group of academics, one of which would most obviously be reading. According to some of the latest statistics, students are being pushed through with a reading comprehension level three years behind their grade level as set by the previous generation of students. However, that is misleading as well because that group by which they are being measured also ranked lower than the classes before them. In other words, we are failing our children in one of the most basic and valuable subjects of all, reading.
So then, would we have known just how far our education system in the United States had declined had it not been for a pandemic that sent kids home to do their classwork? When schools were shut down and kids were given the wherewithal to study remotely – even many of the elementary grade students – parents began getting involved out of necessity. It became a real eye-opener for some who are now lamenting the fact that they weren’t involved at a much earlier stage. Is it possible to set up a system within a system where those students who have the aptitude to study at an accelerated rate would be afforded the opportunity to do just that? Is it possible to set up a nationwide system of homeschools where parents would, in fact, be more involved?
To Be Fair – In Closing
While this may seem like a treatise on the failure of educators, it should be understood in the context in which it is given. If you ask any principal or County Superintendent of Education, the answer will almost always be the same. Those who make the decisions and allocate funds are, for the most part, politicians who have never spent a day in a classroom in 38 out of 50 states. Wouldn’t it make more sense to set up a system like the above-mentioned homeschool system within a system and overseen by a highly trained and motivated professional with a Doctor of Education degree and an emphasis in Educational Leadership and Organizational Innovation? Couldn’t students who have the ambition and aptitude be given the opportunity to excel?
No one is advocating pushing all students through a program such as this. That is why it would be that program within a program, a system within a system. Parents who are willing to give some of their time to see that their children get the best education possible can help make that happen. At the moment, it’s still the status quo. However, maybe SARS-CoV-2 isn’t finished speaking yet. Maybe there is still hope for our gifted children. There are more out there than we can ever know. Why not give them a chance to excel and our teachers a chance to tell us why the system is failing us. Are you ready to listen?
