We have been following Patrick Welsh’s columns on education ever since he began writing for the Washington Post. His columns helped us as our four children went through high school and college. His experience rings true to this father and husband of a teacher.
Now he is writing for USA today. Here is his latest on school reform For Once, Blame the Student:
Last month, as I averaged the second-quarter grades for my senior English classes at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va., the same familiar pattern leapt out at me.
Kids who had emigrated from foreign countries - such as Shewit Giovanni from Ethiopia, Farah Ali from Guyana and Edgar Awumey from Ghana - often aced every test, while many of their U.S.-born classmates from upper-class homes with highly educated parents had a string of C's and D's.
As one would expect, the middle-class American kids usually had higher SAT verbal scores than did their immigrant classmates, many of whom had only been speaking English for a few years.
What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.
Politicians and education bureaucrats can talk all they want about reform, but until the work ethic of U.S. students changes, until they are willing to put in the time and effort to master their subjects, little will change.
Please read the entire column and mail it to your school boards. For my previous links to Welsh’s columns, plus some comments on workplace spirituality as it applies to schools, go here and here.
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