Writing in response to this post, a reader has another view about the rights and responsibilities of parents:
| I’m not satisfied with the way this question is being framed; sometimes just taking an opposing stance to a bad argument isn’t correct.Although parents don’t always “know what’s best” for their child, there is overall no safer repository for the child’s rights and interests than in their hands. Guardianship is a fundamental obligation of parents, as much as a “right”. The first principle for legal defense of children is respect for their families, because there actually isn’t anywhere children can be put which is capable of meeting their needs, or is safer for them. Sometimes the law has to step in and override the parent’s obligations, in instances of parental neglect or abuse, but that’s a grave step, which calls for utmost diligence and many counter-checks to prevent abuse by careless authority. Most parents I know would give their lives for their child, and call it a bargain.
The question of authority in the schools must be framed in those terms. Is psychoactive medication “best” for my child, even if it makes him easier to handle at school? Do the district’s attendance policies warrant their filing a legal CHINS order, and removing my child from her family? My own district once threatened to file a CHINS on a sixteen year old student of mine, with cerebral palsy, because her mother failed to get her down the stairs in time to meet the scheduled pickup stops when the girl had her period. The solution of modifying the bus pickup schedule would have been too expensive, so this accomplished and delightful child was quaking in shame and terror, afraid of being taken from her low-income immigrant family and consigned to a group home. Here is this morning’s heart-searing update on the inhuman “school to prison pipeline” professionals determined was best for Mississippi children: Let’s refine our analysis, so we hold to the concept that professional educators can offer a public program that meets the needs of children and the obligations of society to assure a solid program. If parents find it fails their child, lets give them respectful recourse to the courts to modify the offering. On the other hand, if parents wish for specific private facilities for their child’s education, they don’t have any automatic right to demand tax revenue to support that program. Within that framework, exceptions can be individually crafted. I would have been prepared to testify for my own students special need, if my district hadn’t relented. |
Diane Ravitch's blog 
By logging in you’ll post the following comment to Do Parents Always Know What Is Best?:
Do parents always know what\’s best for their child….no, not always. And there are too many parents who won\’t make the effort to love and nurture their child. But as a mother of a now young man with a disability, who might have been considered \”severe/profound\” while in school, I am frightened by the statements above.
I don\’t know the teacher and won\’t make judgments about her/him but my observations are that s/he wouldn\’t have been a good match for my son as a teacher. And therein lies the rub: how do teachers and parents work together? My complaints about teachers would mirror the complaints about parents: lazy, cold, mean-spirited, unwilling. When I expected professionalism, I got childishness.
Yet, as a person who spent more time with my child than any other adult, I was ignored. Ignored until i got ticked and said no. It was funny that I learned to say no, like a two year old, to get the attention of staff and the permission to cooperate with staff who taught me a great deal about my child and about the education process.
I am no saint and do not know how to translate saying no to a program or plan for better communication between staff and home. I am aware that many teachers just thought I was a hindrance, a nuisance and had ridiculous hopes and dreams for my child. I am not sure if that attitude was taught in the teacher training programs, learned at the knee of another teacher mentor or the result of hard won experiences but the attitude was there.
John White\’s comments do not soothe my worried brow. He is engaging in the us against them strategy of community participation. Pitting parents against teachers, he will destroy what should be a natural union of parents and teachers. Personally I don\’t think the man has an aim or a goal in mind, just a politically polarizing position…..and he is in over his head.
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Can’t agree more: Personally I don\’t think the man has an aim or a goal in mind, just a politically polarizing position…..and he is in over his head.
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Dept of Justice Release on School to Prison Pipeline investigation:
Justice Department Releases Investigative Findings Showing Constitutional Rights of Children in Mississippi Being Violated:
[The department’s investigation showed that the agencies have helped to operate a school-to-prison pipeline whereby children arrested in local schools become entangled in a cycle of incarceration without substantive and procedural protections required by the U.S. Constitution.]
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2012/August/12-crt-993.html
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I agree that we need to take a nuanced approach to many of the issues here, but some of the arguments being raised do not allow it. The argument that per pupil transfers rob the community of it’s collective resources holds no matter the reason for the exception, no matter how carefully crafted.
I look for a system that involves trying to balance the interests of the collective community against the interests of the individual. That seems to be your approach as well.
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The interests of the community aren’t served by discarding the interests of needy or damaged children, just as they aren’t served by abandoning the old or weak along our public roads. We can afford to take care of our own; all of them.
If western civilization is going to collapse because we defend whichever individual children are in front of us, it needs to fall.
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What worries me most is the rhetoric I hear from many I encounter in all walks of life of the ” me, myself, and I ” attitude that seems to have taken over the conversation. What they fail to understand is that we must all be mindful of our responsibility to the greater good of the society in which we live. It is especially disconcerting to hear this from people who profess their religiosity. We can pay attention now, or we can pay the price later. The problems of poverty become the problems of the entire community. Educators can’t solely be held responsible. The responsibility starts with the individual, but becomes that of the collective community, especially when the individual is unable or even unwilling to take responsibility ( as is the case sometimes with our students) .
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@ Chemtchr
Did you mean for this to be a comment about my post? I know WordPress often puts comments in places I don’t intend.
If it is a comment on my post, I don’t see the relevance of your point as I explicitly said the interest of NO ONE should be discarded when I talked of a balancing interests.
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It was in response to your post, teachingeconomist, and I apologize if I misunderstood you.
However, when you talk about “balancing the interests of the community against the interests of the individual” powerless child, the child wins. Either the comprehensive school must meet a child’s real developmental needs, or an out of system transfer will be (correctly) ordered by the court.
Here is a model California law which made that principle explicit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman_Developmental_Disabilities_Act
The law has been in effect since 1969. I was on the parent advisory council during its original implementation phase, and it turned out the public schools could usually develop capacity to educate a child, if the child was holding her very own court order. If the interests of the community aren’t being met, please look elsewhere than disabled children for culprits.
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@ chemtchr
When you say meet the “real” needs, you are making a judgement about which needs are “real”. There is always more that society could do to educate every student, but we must also balance other needs besides education.
You seem to assume that the existing law represents something more than the current balance between educating students with different needs in a school and between education and other pressing social concerns more generally. As a society we have decided to give more weight to educating needy and damaged children than in the past. I expect that we will give even more weight to the individual students needs in the future, and I think student choice will be an important part of that.
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