Ellen Reckhow, chairman of the Durham County Board of Commissioners, admitted failure yesterday during her “state of the county” address. Not in those words exactly, but her call for the business community to get involved in helping lower the school dropout rate was an admission of failure in this regard. The business community will surely fail, too, because that’s not where the answer lies.
Parents are the problem, and the solution. They always have been. When parents began failing as parents the first group people blamed was teachers. But teachers were never meant to act as parents, social workers and psychiatrists, which they are called upon to be every single day. Next it was the administrators. Then it was the testing methods. Then the school buildings themselves. Whatever. Now our leaders are expanding the ring of failure, afraid to put the blame where it rightfully lies.
Pretty soon they’ll be telling us it takes more than the village to raise your children, it takes the whole damn world, and still we will fail. We all know deep in our hearts only parents can solve this problem. Why are we afraid to say so?
