On occasion I have written about the lack of a father in a child's life, here and here and how it affects their academic achievement. This inconvenient truth about children being fatherless is ignored or dismissed as a non-factor by the education deformers ranging from Barack Obama, down to the "fifth columnists" at E4E. To these education deformers , the real cause for student academic problems is the quality of the teacher not the family and community environment. How wrong they are and they know it. The worst of the bunch has to be ex-Chancellor Joel Klein who has time and again falsely blamed schools (principals and teachers) and not the family for the problems in the school system and falsely claimed a narrowing of the academic achievement gap.
Study after study has shown that a lack of a father in the family makes a child more likely to fail academically by either repeating a grade or being expelled. In fact, a study in "Adolescence" showed that a child in a fatherless household is 70% more likely to be expelled! Furthermore, another study showed that 70% of children who are in juvenile facilities did not grow up with fathers. On the positive side children with engaged and involved fathers attain more "A"'s in school, a higher levels of education, and tend to join extracurricular activities that make them a better adjusted person for survival in the adult world. Yet the so-called education deformers deliberately ignore this issue as if it has no relevance in student academic achievement, what baloney!
Here are just some of the problems that various studies have found when there are no fathers present in a child's life.Lower grades.
- Lower school grades.
- Greater absenteeism.
- Left back or expelled.
- Increased dropout rate.
- More behavior problems.
- Increased pregnancy rates for teenage girls.
- Greater incarceration rates.
- Unable to keep a job for long periods of time.
- No male role models for socialization and disciplinary issues.
- Lack of father's income.
We have come a long way from the Murphy Brown days in the 80's when fathers were dismissed as simply the wage earner who's only importance to a child's development was the income he brought into the household and was considered by the snobby liberal elite as a relic of the past. We now know that fathers are just as important to a child's life as his or her mother and it takes two caring and committed parents to get the child to reach his or her academic achievement potential. For the education deformers to continue to ignore the family issue, is just plain wrong!
On this Father's Day. I need to remind those education deformers about the inconvenient truth that fathers are extremely important to the family and it is the family that is the most important factor in student success and academic achievement.
Thank you Chaz.
ReplyDeleteUnderstand as well if you will that it is statistically proven that the place most likely for a fatality for a child between the ages of 1yr. and 12yr. is in a hosehold where his mother is co-habitating with a man not the children's Father.SAdly in our culture it is taken as almost a given that the children's Father has little role to play. Why this is requires a longer response.