Disconnect in the Heartland

Public Agenda released a report this week on Kansas and Missouri parents’ and students’ attitudes toward math, science, and technology education.

Basically, the Midwesterners said, “Meh.”

Public Agenda found that just 25 percent of Kansas/Missouri parents think their children should be studying more math and science, and 70 percent think things “are fine as they are now.”

Oh, it’s not that they don’t understand how important math and science are to the nation’s ability to compete globally. How could they not, considering how often this notion is trotted out?

The report’s title identifies the disconnect: ”Important, But Not for Me.” When it comes to seeing math and science education as personally important to “life, learning, and earning,” the parents and students aren’t making the connection. 

What’s this have to do with NCLB? This wasn’t a study of math requirements under NCLB, after all. In fact, the law isn’t mentioned in Public Agenda’s report.

And yet.

Here we are, arguing over reauthorizing a law that assesses kids’ math proficiency nine ways to Sunday, that puts sleepless-nights pressure on teachers and punishes schools when they don’t measure up, that will add science testing to the whole morass, all in the quest of the greater good, of improving public education to keep America competitive and jobs from leeching overseas, fate of the nation at stake, yadda yadda, and what have we learned?

That parents are sending their kids to school with the vaguest of notions that this stuff is important in anything but the abstract.

If students don’t have a lot of personal interest in mastering math, and they’re not getting the message at home, then teachers and schools are expending a lot of effort — federally mandated effort — without the cooperation and support they need to get the job done.

And here you have Exhibit A: Why 100% proficiency feels impossible.

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