Here the Mississippi Legislature goes again (like many other states) looking for the “strawman” responsible for stagnant low “test scores.”

This time it’s “frame the superintendent.” Framing teachers started decades ago.

Permit me, after more than 30 years in the classroom, to enlighten all politicians (state and federal) as to the ignored root problem.

The school system requires only that a parent or parents “send a respectful child willing to learn” to school.

The simple fact is now a majority of parents in most schools cannot fulfill that crucial duty. Without them meeting their responsibility, the job of education becomes nearly impossible. The teaching-learning process is clogged with poorly parented children. You should know that.

The federal-state-local edu-crats spend a ton of time “working around” the growing percentage of poorly parented children. They have meetings, do creative dumbing down of tests, teach only to the tests, pressure teachers into inflating grades and ignore any parental confrontations.

It is way past time to stop this reality-avoidance and start sending these disrespectful disruptive lazy children home for three days at a time to the weak parenting that spawned this behavior.

Oh, I forgot, the state and federal government bean counters will give the school system grief so let us continue to lose about 25 percent of instructional time to discipline.

It’s always somebody’s fault, but what penalty does the sorry parent pay?

The “status quo-we can’t because” crowd will continue to spout the half-dozen mantras that have kept the respectful kids willing to learn deprived of their right to an education.

Are you part of the problem or part of the solution?

Doug Schexnayder, Ph.D.