Joseph Bottum is a book and art editor. Such a good girl. And she's very, very brave. What's more, he doesn't know how to ask the questions to determine whether a school teaches these things. He's not alone.
Most parents struggle with the issue of school quality and how to measure it.
Surveys tell us, however, that parents do favor a few very specific education initiatives. This spring, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics recommended a refocusing on fundamental skills after previously urging teachers to emphasize conceptual understanding rather than basic skills. Perhaps because for some time there has been a disconnect between what the public wants from schools and what teachers of teachers think schools should be providing. Nine out of ten of them in the survey believe when teachers assign math or history questions, it is more important for kids to struggle with the process of finding the right answer than actually knowing the right answer. Fifty-nine percent of them think that the threat of flunking or being held back is not important.