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Largely it's the parents' responsibility for their children to do well in school. If parents have high expectations for their children to perform well academically, their children most likely will. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many parents today rely too heavily on the school environment to teach their children basic study skills, manners, etiquette, etc., to the detriment that basic learning of math, English, etc. are sometimes put on the back burner.
I agree that expectations are important, however, I don't think they're the only reason for performance, nor can expectations make up for learning difficulties. One can expect their child to do well, and it still may not be up to the child's capacity to do well.
After 27 years of parenting, I've never met any parents who expect the schools to teach their kids manners, etiquette, etc. As far as putting basic learning on the back burner, people come on this forum all the time suggesting kids be taught how to balance a checkbook, and all sorts of non-academic things.
Uncaring parents, students that know how to play the system, a school system more concerned with meeting objectives to get their money, teachers that have lost their love of teaching but need that pension, a testing industry that pushes for more tests in order to make more money, a Federal Government that thinks they know what's best and will expand based on that mission. The list can go on and on.
After going back to college as an older adult, I've begun to notice a few things that reflect what education has become. Universities are NOT in the business of teaching, they are in business to get research money and stay open. If you get educated,then it's usually in spite of the school itself. If you need a reference the book is "Academically Adrift," and it reveals that nearly 1/2 of students have learned nothing after two years of school, and that 1/3 have learned nothing after four years. This is a damning indictment of the corruption of education, making it nothing more than a place where students go deep into debt in order not to be educated.
Why is all that important? Because if we had an educated population, one that had been brought up to critically think and analyze a situation, then what I posted above would NEVER have happened in the first place. An educated population would have been keenly aware of what they paid and what they got, and would be all over the legislature and unis, demanding that either do a better job or no more of our tax money goes for failed institutions. Instead there is no outcry, no outrage,nothing but a mad dash to get into college,even if it means no work available to pay off crushing student debt. USAAmerican education has failed,and the measure of it's failure is the apathy that USAAmericans display time and again to real issues which profoundly affect their lives. Not in test scores or GPA's,but in how we as a people deal with corruption and criminal behavior by those in power. Instead the things that animate us re: education are sex in schools, sports, clothes that kids wear, underage drug/alcohol use, and if kids have any motivation to learn anything on their own. If a teacher has to be concerned for their or their students safety,then the school should oust those kids,and return them to the parents/jailers until they've been socialized enough to act appropriately. If a teacher has to devise ways to get students interested is a subject matter because they're too enamored with electronic gadgets,then they should be sent back to their parents until they learn what the real purpose of school. If a university fails to educate students, spends most of their time chasing research money rather than teach, is caught taking kickbacks from banks for steering students to bad loans, is involved in any sports scandals which cost the university adversely in terms of academics, that institution should lose all government support.
All that would happen if we had a population which had an active and engaged mind, which is indicative of an educated citizenry. It isn't happening because we for the most part have never been educated enough to do so. And it has nothing to do with schools, we had a far more politically aware population when we didn't have a huge number of citizens attending college. Instead we've allowed ourselves to be made stupid by advertising, public relations, and mass media cultural schemes. Sorry stop blaming schools for our failure, those schools reflect us and what we value, and it isnt education.
A school's performance is primarily a function of the parents. Where you have good parents, good schools will somehow follow. Where there are bad parents, almost nothing can create a good school.
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