Uninformed or disconnected Dekalb County parents doom their kids to failure.....

If you're a Dekalb County parent who believes that your job begins and ends as a parent when you dress, feed and drop-off your child to their local school, then your child is doomed.   If you believe that the curriculum offered at your child's school is competitive nationally or even internationally, then you are naive.  If you believe that getting A's and B's in a Dekalb county school is a badge of honor, then you have lost your way.  If you believe that anything less that "exceeds expectation" or being magnet eligible reflects that your child is learning in school, then you have a long way to go to catch up.  If you believe that "schools know best", then your child is destined for a life of mediocrity.

The truth is, Dekalb County is not unique in it's inability to properly educate our young people.  Bloated administrations, incompetence, nepotism, low standards, poor quality teachers and uninterested parents are not unique to Dekalb County, but sadly when coupled with parents who have very little understanding of standards of success, of how others prepare their kids or of what it takes to succeed, then you are faced with the failure that is the South Dekalb Alliance of Schools.

In the first place, parents of kids who exceed expectations do not rely solely on schools to educate their children. These parents review the standards from the top schools in the nation, they purchase study aids, take their kids to museums, engage their kids in discussions about school and enroll their kids in enrichment classes. Often in poor and minority communities, parents assume tutors are for only when their kids are failing.  Parents of kids who excel know that their kids must be enrolled in after school tutoring or some other source of supplemental learning to push them forward, to challenge them, to make them competitive with the rest of world.

The model of today's US public classroom is simply not conducive to learning.  A 1:17 ratio is not optimal even when you have 17 well behaved kids in the classroom and in the last couple of years, that model has become a 1:25, 1:30 or even 1:50 [1 teacher: x students] as was the case in an "elite" South Dekalb High School Math class last Fall.  In a classroom of 17 students, you will probably have kids who have no clue, kids who do their home work and pay attention and kids who have already advanced beyond the subject matter.  The 1:too many ratio optimally serves the average kid, who will sit, listen and do their homework.  The clueless kids are doomed to fail and the outstanding kids are disadvantaged, unchallenged, bored and denied the opportunity to advance in order to be more competitive with elite students from all over the world.  

Parents of advanced kids in Dekalb County satisfy themselves with the idea of getting their kids into a magnet program.  With 1 or 2 exceptions, magnet students in Dekalb County are often lumped into classes with non-magnet students resulting in the above stated situation; essentially, more of the same. It must be stated that the magnet programs up North, like the non-magnet programs up North are more competitive and offer better results because of involved parents who insist on high educational standards for their children. They also perform better because advanced kids in S.Dekalb continue to be shipped off to schools up North as their panicked parents face neighborhood schools with rampant discipline problems, consistently low achievement, overcrowded classrooms, unprepared and overwhelmed teachers, penitentiary like discipline systems and disconnected parents.

All parents with children in S.Dekalb shools should enroll their kids in enrichment programs like Kumon or Khan Academy or countless other online programs to continue to academically challenge their children.  They should find affordable year round study groups where their children can be challenged, where learning is cool and where they can socialize with kids of like minds.  

Parents of kids who are struggling MUST take immediate steps to get their kids back on track.  Some steps may be drastic but fixing the problem will require nothing less than a commitment to hard work and shared sacrifice.  Consequently, we recommend cutting off cable TV.  Limiting sugars and junk foods in kids diets.  Enforcing a bedtime which will allow for a more energetic and alert student the following day, deleting facebook accounts or severely limiting access [which is close to impossible], finding an effective tutoring service for your child IMMEDIATELY.  All tutors are not good, so ask for a 1 week [paid] trial period before you signup or sign any contracts.  Look for their ability to evaluate your child, analyze their deficiencies and offer a plan for improvement.  Look for progress [even in 1 concept] at the end of 1 week.  Video games must simply be taken away and maybe offered 1 day a week.  Students should be encouraged to read, or engage with online educational resources like discoveryeducation.com [ask school for username and password], brainpop.com [you may have to pay for this],khanacademy.com [free], or youtube.com [search topic of interest].  There are hundreds of resources online, but we limit our recommendations to these 4 because the options can be overwhelming.

Parents in South Dekalb have to take a long honest look at themselves and make adjustments to ensure that their kids are well prepared for a new and changing world economy.  The consequences are dire for unprepared children as world economies continue to struggle, and the world increasingly becomes a global market place where children from all over the world will be able to compete with our children for jobs and opportunities.  These new realities leave us with little choice.  Either we change today, or our children sink tomorrow.