
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, September 12, 1994                   TAG: 9410210003
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A HARD LESSON, BUT A GOOD ONE

PARENTS dissatisfied with the quality of education their children receive can do something about it. But they'll have to hit the books.

That's right. Far from being able to kick back and relax now that summer vacation is over and the kids are back in school, parents who want their children to get the best schooling possible should be rolling up their sleeves and spending their evenings helping with homework.

And there should be plenty of it.

A recent Education Department study shows that students who do the best on standardized tests in math, reading, science and social studies have parents who help manage their education, talk to them about school and schoolwork, provide adult supervision after school, and restrict television during the week. The top students also have teachers who have high expectations for their classes and assign lots of homework.

In case clarification is needed, that is schoolwork done at home - where a parent or parents should be overseeing quality.

There's no startling revelation in any of this. The findings sound like common sense. But they are starkly significant nonetheless. Not that raising the quality of education for the post-MTV generation will be simple. It will be as hard as convincing more parents that more of the responsibility lies with them.

This is an especially heavy load for a single parent or parents who both have jobs outside the home. After working all day, they have to go home and get the family fed and keep the household running. This is work. Now, they should add hours of homework on top of all of this? No way, some weary adults will say. Teachers get paid to teach. That is their job.

Only partly. Class periods are short, and even brilliant teachers don't have time in the school day to cover all the necessary material and ensure that each student masters every subject. Classroom instruction must be supplemented by outside study, and outside study will be most beneficial under parental supervision.

If parents take the lessons of this latest study to heart and get more involved, teachers and schools will have to make room in the classroom for them, intellectually if not physically. That may create more opportunities for friction and dogmatic interference. But if parents approach a teacher with respect for his or her professionalism, and teachers accept parents' interest as legitimate and helpful (which they almost universally do), they can create a powerful partnership with a common purpose: student achievement.

Students themselves must recognize it is their job to get a sound education. But the burden for setting this standard falls, once again, on Mom and Dad. It's a family value. A teacher can't tell a student he must quit his night job because he is showing up unprepared or is falling asleep in class. Parents who know how their child is faring can and must.

Sports, extracurricular activities and limited afterschool employment are fine, but never should they come close in importance to Job 1: homework, which should be Job 1 for the entire family.

And if kids have no trouble doing it all, they probably aren't getting enough homework. That's something parents can talk to the teacher about.

by CNB