Parents, teachers and education experts have spent decades arguing over what is wrong with the school system and, more importantly, who is responsible for fixing it.<\/p>\n
There are few subjects more emotionally charged than the education of children. Everyone seems to have an opinion about how schools should operate, how children should be raised and what teachers should \u2014 or should not \u2014 be responsible for.<\/p>\n
After all, education is one of the most important stages of a child\u2019s life. It is where children are expected to learn not only reading, writing and mathematics, but also discipline, responsibility, respect and how to interact with the people around them.<\/p>\n
But when schools struggle, the blame can quickly become a battleground.<\/p>\n
Are teachers failing their students? Are schools being given too little support? Or are parents expecting educators to take on responsibilities that should begin at home?<\/p>\n
One retired teacher had a very clear answer.<\/p>\n
Her name is\u00a0Lisa Roberson<\/strong>, and in 2017, she wrote an open letter to parents and the public that would go on to spark widespread discussion about the state of American education.<\/p>\n Published in\u00a0The Augusta Chronicle<\/em>, Roberson\u2019s letter was anything but gentle.<\/p>\n In fact, her message was so direct that years later, it continues to circulate online and provoke arguments about the responsibilities of parents and teachers.<\/p>\n It is also important to remember the timing.<\/p>\n Roberson\u2019s letter was written in 2017, several years before the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted education across the United States. The pandemic brought remote learning, school closures, new classroom policies and sweeping changes to the way teachers, students and parents interacted.<\/p>\n Those changes generated plenty of controversy of their own.<\/p>\n But Roberson\u2019s argument came long before any of that.<\/p>\n And according to the retired educator, the biggest problem facing schools was not the teachers standing at the front of the classroom.<\/p>\n It was what was happening at home.<\/p>\n Roberson began her letter by explaining her frustration with people who, in her view, were making decisions about public education without understanding what actually happens inside a classroom.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a retired teacher, I am sick of people who know nothing about public schools or have not been in a classroom recently deciding how to fix our education system,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Then came the sentence that would become the heart of her message:<\/p>\n \u201cThe teachers are not the problem! Parents are the problem!\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Roberson argued that teachers were increasingly being expected to compensate for things children were not learning at home.<\/p>\n She believed that basic lessons about manners, respect, responsibility and getting along with others should begin with parents \u2014 not be placed entirely on teachers once children entered school.<\/p>\n Her frustration was particularly focused on the growing expectations placed on educators.<\/p>\n Teachers, she argued, were already responsible for educating dozens of children at once. Yet many were also being asked to provide supplies, manage behavior problems and compensate for a lack of parental involvement.<\/p>\n She illustrated her point with a simple example.<\/p>\n \u201cThe children come to school in shoes that cost more than the teacher\u2019s entire outfit, but have no pencil or paper,\u201d Roberson wrote.<\/p>\n And according to her, teachers frequently ended up paying for those basic supplies themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cThe teachers often provide them out of their own pockets,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n For Roberson, that was just one symptom of a much larger problem.<\/p>\n Rather than simply accusing parents of failing their children, Roberson challenged readers to look more closely at what was happening outside the classroom.<\/p>\n She asked a series of questions.<\/p>\n When schools are labeled as \u201cfailing,\u201d she argued, people should also examine the parents and students attending those schools.<\/p>\n Do parents attend parent nights?<\/p>\n Do they communicate regularly with their children\u2019s teachers?<\/p>\n Do they make sure their children arrive at school with the supplies they need?<\/p>\n Do they check whether homework has been completed?<\/p>\n Do they provide working telephone numbers so teachers can contact them when necessary?<\/p>\n And perhaps most importantly, do they take responsibility for their children\u2019s behavior and attitude toward learning?<\/p>\n Roberson also turned her attention toward the students themselves.<\/p>\n Do they take notes during class?<\/p>\n Do they complete their assignments?<\/p>\n Do they listen when their teachers are speaking?<\/p>\n Or are they the ones disrupting the classroom and preventing other students from learning?<\/p>\n Her argument was that these questions cannot simply be ignored when judging the performance of a school.<\/p>\n For Roberson, the distinction was straightforward.<\/p>\n Teachers have a job.<\/p>\n Parents have a job.<\/p>\n And she believed the education system suffers when those responsibilities become blurred.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you look at these factors, you will see that it is not schools that are failing but the parents,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n Her most forceful point came at the end of the letter.<\/p>\n \u201cTeachers cannot do their jobs and the parents\u2019 job,\u201d she argued.<\/p>\n And unless parents were willing to take greater responsibility for their children\u2019s education, behavior and preparation, Roberson did not believe the situation would improve.<\/p>\n \u201cUntil parent step up and do their job, nothing is going to get better!\u201d she concluded.<\/p>\n The bluntness of the statement was impossible to miss.<\/p>\n It is hardly surprising that Roberson\u2019s words generated such a strong reaction.<\/p>\n Education is an issue that affects virtually every family, and discussions about responsibility can become deeply personal.<\/p>\n Some readers agreed with Roberson, arguing that teachers cannot be expected to raise children while simultaneously educating them.<\/p>\n They pointed to issues such as classroom disruptions, missing homework, lack of parental communication and students arriving at school without basic supplies as evidence that teachers sometimes face problems that begin long before a child enters the classroom.<\/p>\n Others, however, have argued that the situation is far more complicated.<\/p>\n Parents may face financial difficulties, demanding work schedules, limited access to transportation or other challenges that can make school involvement difficult.<\/p>\n Teachers, meanwhile, work inside a system affected by funding, class sizes, administrative decisions, curriculum requirements and countless other factors.<\/p>\n For those critics, placing the blame almost entirely on parents oversimplifies a complicated problem.<\/p>\n And that is perhaps why Roberson\u2019s letter continues to circulate.<\/p>\n It touches on a question that has no universally accepted answer:\u00a0Where does a teacher\u2019s responsibility end, and where does a parent\u2019s responsibility begin?<\/strong><\/p>\n The education landscape has changed considerably since Roberson wrote her letter in 2017.<\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic later transformed classrooms, forced parents to become more involved in their children\u2019s schooling and exposed weaknesses in education systems across the country.<\/p>\n Teachers faced enormous pressure.<\/p>\n Parents faced new responsibilities.<\/p>\n Students faced challenges of their own.<\/p>\n And the debate over who should be held accountable became even more complicated.<\/p>\n Yet the central question raised by Roberson remains familiar.<\/p>\n Teachers are educators, but are they also expected to teach children basic manners, respect and responsibility?<\/p>\n Parents are their children\u2019s first teachers, but how much responsibility should they carry once their children enter the school system?<\/p>\n There may not be a simple answer.<\/p>\n What is clear is that Roberson\u2019s letter struck a nerve.<\/p>\n Her words challenged parents to look at their own role in their children\u2019s education rather than placing every problem at the feet of teachers and schools.<\/p>\n Whether you agree with her or believe she placed too much responsibility on parents, her argument opened a conversation that continues years later.<\/p>\n Because behind every classroom, every teacher and every school is a child \u2014 and ensuring that child succeeds may require both parents and educators to take responsibility for the part they play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Parents, teachers and education experts have spent decades arguing over what is wrong with the school system and, more importantly, who is responsible for fixing it. There are few subjects … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-3854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-breaking-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3854"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3856,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3854\/revisions\/3856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thejoeroganpod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\u201cThe Teachers Are Not the Problem\u201d<\/h2>\n
She Had Questions for Parents<\/h2>\n
\u201cTeachers Cannot Do Their Jobs and the Parents\u2019 Job\u201d<\/h2>\n
Why the Letter Created So Much Debate<\/h2>\n
A Debate That Has Outlived the Original Letter<\/h2>\n