Who’s really to blame for home-school fail?

Convenient as it is to criticise teachers when students fall behind, parents should look closer to home and take some responsibility for kids not making the grade, writes Kylie Lang.

If students failed to interact online with teachers during home-schooling, as a new report claims, then whose fault is that – the teachers’?

While it’s easy to slam educators for unfavourable outcomes, parents should be examining their part in what is quite likely the biggest fail in years for Queensland kids.

For six long weeks in the height of the pandemic – long because teachers were working almost around the clock and mums and dads also were stressed by disrupted routines and, in many cases, loss of income – most children were forced to learn from home.

Arguing that the Palaszczuk Government should never have closed schools in the first place, because the risk of children catching COVID-19 was slim and sanitisation procedures could have been implemented to also protect staff, is of little use at this point.

It happened. Now to trying to pick up the pieces.

Classrooms are open but children have fallen behind during home-schooling, according to parents surveyed in a new report.

But a Centre for Independent Studies report suggests parents are peeved with how home-schooling was handled by educators.

In analysing a survey of 803 parents from Queensland, NSW and Victoria – not what I’d call a convincing sample size, but anyway – it found one in three Queensland children never had online interaction with their teachers.

Authors Glenn Fahey and Blaise Joseph determined that 1.25 million students across the three states fell behind in what should be a “wake-up call” for schools and policy makers.

Might be time for parents to wake up too, and instead of slinging mud at teachers, look at what kind of environment they provided during home-schooling.

Did they monitor their kids’ online usage, and if playing games was taking place when they should have been studying, do anything about it?

Did they engage with their children, and with the school, in supervising and actually enforcing lesson participation?

Those who did – including while battling their own COVID-19 pressures and an annoying state school outage for online learning – are to be commended.

And they’re the ones who now have greater appreciation for the work teachers do as they eagerly wait for the hair they pulled out in April and May to grow back.

Those who didn’t step up shouldn’t stand in judgement.

One of the greatest irritants for educators, and it comes up repeatedly in surveys, is a lack of support from the home.

Too often, parents pack their kids off to school and consider their job done. Schools are responsible for the entire education process.

Wrong.

A landmark study by American sociologist James Coleman – of more than 650,000 students (compare that to the 800 parents in this week’s report) – shows a student’s background and home environment surpasses the quality of schools, teachers and funding levels in determining outcomes.

The quality of the home environment is a significant factor in children’s educational outcomes, according to several studies.

Other research, crunching data from more than 10,000 students as well as parents, teachers and school administrators, singles out parental involvement as more significant in a child’s academic performance than anything the school can do.

“Parents need to be aware of how important they are, and invest time in their children – checking homework, attending school events and letting kids know school is important,” says North Carolina State University sociology professor Toby Parcel, who co-authored the research with peers from Brigham Young University and the University of California, Irvine.

“That’s where the payoff is,” Prof Parcel says.

Australia’s Centre for Independent Studies says 41 per cent of parents think their child learned less at home during lockdown than they would have in the classroom.

I’m surprised the percentage isn’t higher given the hands-off approach many parents take.

Mr Fahey acknowledges the absence of data to determine the fallout from this year’s forced home-schooling.

“We don’t have NAPLAN, we don’t have definitive tools to tell us how many students have fallen behind, so the only other place is to ask parents,” he says.

May I suggest the centre reaches out to teachers, and more than 800 of them, to gauge their thoughts on the success or otherwise of learning during lockdown?

While it’s at it, ask about other times of the year too.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail

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