Parents must fulfill their parental roles

Regarding the story last week about Illinois "dropout factories":

While passages about culture and poverty and "one-size-fits-all" educational approaches all described factors in the problem, the single most important factor was only indirectly hinted at: Parents who don't parent.

As a 1971 graduate of Thornridge High School, which this year tied for dead last among suburban schools with a miserable 36-percent retention rate, I can say that even back then, parental attitudes were excellent indicators of which classmates would succeed and which wouldn't.

This is not rocket science, parents. Kids are kids, and they need parents to take responsibility for leadership. If you show your children that their education is a primary goal, if you get involved in supervising homework and helping out with school parent activities, etc., the children know what the goals and rewards are. If you duck out of that part of your child's life, they don't. You leave the child, unguided, to take the path of least resistance -- which is failure.

To the parents at Thornridge High School, and all the other schools on the Johns Hopkins list, I'd say this: Go to the school board meetings. Go to the school parent activities. If you don't see parents up at arms over the horrible retention rate, you'll know where the problem is.

Brian Ward, Mundelein