Parents must be responsible for students' success

In a recent address, speaking directly to parents, Jim Rogers, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education said, "Your only relationship with the education system is to ship your unprepared kids to school, not with the expectation of success, but with the demand that an education system, inadequately funded, develop and/or repair children that you as a parent did not prepare for school or support while your children attended school."

Several days later, Mike Enright in a letter to the editor of the Nevada Appeal wrote, "The solution is still P-a-r-e-n-t-i-n-g, and personal responsibility for our children's education."

Over the past several years, I have written columns proclaiming the same belief. Now, when parental responsibility is specifically cited by the chancellor and publicly endorsed by a citizen child advocate, the idea may be raised to a more credible level.

A problem is defined as the difference between the "is" and the "should be." The latest statistics report that around 67 percent of Nevada students graduate. The Carson City School District reports better results with roughly 83 percent. Yet we want 100 percent of our children to graduate. The difference between the "is" and the "should be" for Nevada is approximately 33 percent. That 33 percent will define the problem.

What are the differences between the 67 percent who graduate and the 33 percent who do not? I believe that difference can be summarized in one word: Parents.

Thomas Jefferson is credited with proclaiming a natural truth in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

As a slave holder, for Jefferson to pen such a historically significant and powerful truth presents a direct and equally powerful conflict with the conduct of his personal life. At a lesser level, such conflicts are routine in our everyday lives. In Jefferson's case however, it is of significant proportion because of the enormity of its historical power and its uniqueness given the time and circumstances within which it was conceived.

Like many of our public statements and behaviors that are in conflict with our private conduct, for Jefferson to maintain some peace of mind, his historical pronouncement had to exist in a mental "logic-tight compartment," separate from an awareness of his private behavior. Otherwise, either the public or the private behavior would be a conscious sham and, depending upon the magnitude, an immoral act. What we may not know, however, is that, like Jefferson's declaration, many experience the same fermentation about a heretofore unexpressed belief that is in conflict with our public life.

The controversy about the ostensible failure of the American school system falls into the Jeffersonian "logic-tight compartment" category. Covertly, despite their public pronunciations, many parents experience an uncomfortable feeling that their criticisms of the school system are not fully factual, not even reasonable and without empirical evidence. They appear to have conveniently separated and relegated parental and school responsibility into separate compartments, the covert side hiding parental responsibility, the overt side shoving it off to the school. Thus, if their children fail, the school is to blame.

But, now, slowly, parents are beginning to allow these uncomfortable and conflicting thoughts to surface and are publicly expressing them more frequently. They are becoming aware that, like ignorance of the law, ignorance of parental responsibility for the education of children is no excuse to abdicate this responsibility.

For Jefferson, it was an act of courage to publicly denounce nonvirtuous behaviors and replace them with virtuous conduct. He set a good example for America, Nevada and Carson City parents.

- Dan Mooney is a 43-year Nevada resident. He may be contacted at Nevada4@aol.com.