Lou on Ed

I'm not always a big fan of Lou Dobbs. To me, he's one of the new breed of editorial show hosts that began as news programs (see other idiots like Bill O'Reilly). While I rarely agree with him, he made some good points in an editorial post at CNN.com.
The whole gist of Mr. Dobbs' editorial was that schools are failing and that fact, one that is rarely mentioned by educational administrators or government officials, is going to be biting us in the butt as those people become part of the society. As a teacher, these kind of statistics and the placing of blame squarely on the teacher's shoulders always frustrates me (keep reading before you comment on my participating in TV news bashing), but I'm not so naive that I think our system is perfect.
My theory is that there are two factors that are contributing to the downslide of our academic system: the teachers and parents.
The old joke is that people go into teaching when they can't do anything else. That theory made me laugh, until I started hanging out with more teachers. I think that, unfortunately, there is some truth to that. One thing that I like from Dobbs' article is paying teachers more and holding them more accountable. I do not, in any way, shape or form, agree with merit pay, or paying for how well your students perform on tests. It's not hard to adjust test scores, whether you administer the test a little differently or you use an eraser in your grade book. Also, there is still some "good ole boy" systems in schools, and even more schools in which you get that administration job by kissing the right butt. Therefore, I guarantee that the merit pay will be criticized by all of us who give the students the grades they earned and don't sniff our boss' ass.
There are three kinds of parents: Those who have been snowballed to think that their child does no wrong, those that "get it" and realize their child is not a saint, and those that rarely realize they have a child. Each class I've had has a mixture of all three. The last group, those that don't realize they have a child, is the one I try to focus on to make sure they realize by the end of the year. But home life is the largest factor (yes, even more so than teaching) in how a child performs in school. Therefore, no matter what tricks I use to get a child to learn, it takes that much more to get it to stick if there isn't any reinforcement from home.
I will say that this is one of the few times that I've agreed with Dobbs and thought he had some good points. I used to watch him more until every time I turned on the TV it was something more about Mexico (you can only hear so much). To improve education, it doesn't take more testing, newer schools or prettier textbooks. It takes teachers being paid to be accountable and parents that realize they have kids that are not perfect, no matter how badly they want to live vicariously through them.