Not really surprising at all. Look at the evolution of large retail grocery stores. Once upon a time, this was a full service business. Customer came to the store and at the check out,  a cashier with an bagger typically looked after you. More and more today, you check yourself out and bag your own groceries.

The objective of this remodeling of the experience is to reduce the cost for the retailer. Ironically, in the education experience,  organized labour have leveraged this new tendency amongst younger people to take on more and more as their daily responsibility without much careful thought about both the societal and family consequences. Tutoring has taken it’s place besides little league hockey as an accepted after school activity…and a prerequisite for any responsible parent to be involved in.

Organized labour and its institutional primary and secondary school educational administrative partners has taken full advantage of this new cultural predisposition to substantially re-organize the fundamental responsibilities and ultimately the functional accountability rules. The result is that parents end up with all the responsibility and when the finger points, it is at them.  The professional educator classes have largely sidestepped, accountable responsibility while reaping increased available time so they can make sure their own children are properly educated.

Parents and society at large have been duped by an increasingly powerful organized education lobby that has taken more and more out of the available financial resource pool while successfully becoming less and less accountable for their daily activities.  This result is almost the exact opposite of the grocery store experience but ironically the result is the same…downloading a job onto the parent that didn’t exist 40 years ago.

In the comments section of Huffington Post, a blogger also implies that teaching children to read is a very complex task, which it isn’t.  Using phonics makes the task very easy.  After coming back to Canada, I remember helping children learn to read, and they were absolutely amazed with themselves that they could actually do it when taught properly (phonics) as opposed to what’s going on in classrooms today…

Frank is correct that much of the responsibility has been downloaded down to the parents, and of course they are the ones’ to be held accountable by the education establishment. I was told around 2004 or so, by no less an educator with a PHD that its up to parents to teach the nuts and bolts of grammar, spelling and other writing conventions. The response to evade my request of asking for writing resources from the school.

Not only to download the responsibility to parents, but its expected that the parents will picked up the tab as well. It really irks me, because the money expenditures by parents for education resources are not considered tax deductibles.

So, yes there is parents out there that think its up to the parents to teach them reading and everything else the school no longer provides. However, this collective group of parents quickly change their tune, when one of their children are having learning difficulties, and they are sent packing by the school - sorry can’t help you in various messages.

I have observed when citing low literacy levels - its the same type of reactions as in the Huff-Post article. It is downplayed by parents, and for some parents - its up to the parents to teach their kids to read. A disconnect between what occurs in the K to 12 education system and the outcomes that comes with associated costs to society with people with low literacy skills. Thinking in silos, where the low literacy rates are cut-off from the future costs to society. Seeing data streams in isolation promotes the stay-in-the-box thinking by parents, and benefits the public education establishment, and the stakeholders. As Frank has stated - “As Frank has stated - “.  The professional educator classes have largely sidestepped, accountable responsibility while reaping increased available time so they can make sure their own children are properly educated”

I have personally observed that the professional educator classes personal ensure that their children are properly educated. What is a reality, in the upper levels of the public education system, the likelihood that the high-priced help sends their children to private school is on the increase, while they denied choice options for the students stuck in the public school. .