Audacious Education

Education is a matter of self-motivation. Americans once knew this, but many of us have forgotten. We now like to blame the government for an educational shortfall that is the result of our own lack of parenting. Over the past few weeks, I’ve received a number of emails bashing the President’s No Child Left Behind law. Many of the emails are the result of a California court ruling suspending the validity of the California High School Exit Exam, the test all California students must pass in order to receive their high school diplomas. The Exit Exam is embarrassingly basic: there are two sections of 8th and 9th grade math, respectively, and a section of 10th grade English. Students can take the test multiple times and need only answer 51% of the questions correctly.

I’m sure Barak Obama’s mother was smiling from heaven when her son delivered his speech, “The Audacity of Hope,” at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Barak Obama’s life is a study in educational success, largely driven by his mother’s love. When Obama was a small child, he moved to Indonesia with his mother and her husband, Obama’s stepfather. In Jakarta, Obama attended an American school that his mother considered substandard. Instead of throwing her hands up in the air and allowing her son’s brain to atrophy, Obama’s mother chose to read to her son for 2 hours each morning before he went to school, exchanging ideas and thoughts on any topic, including black history. Can you imagine how stimulating these interactions must have been? How many (black) American parents would make such a sacrifice for their children? Why do we blame the schools instead of laying blame where it should be, with the parents?