Who's responsible?

As I was talking to a pre-K teacher yesterday, we were sharing stories about how students are no longer held responsible for their homework and parents don't claim any responsibility for their child's upbringing. She mentioned that she'd won a gift card for the largest number of parents who had made an appearance for a parent-teacher conference. Two parents showed up for hers. Guess the other teachers had 1 or no parents show up. 

She also mentioned that her homework assignments (some of which are required by the curriculum) require that parents read to students, then sign a note stating they'd done so. Most of her students never submit their assignments.

Those are our 4 year-old students. Add on a few more years to the education of the children and we come up with a generation with so many gaps in knowledge, we can't keep up. The solution? Bandaids. I can't really tell you how many times I've heard a teacher tell students things like "just skip the problems on the test that have fractions or guess at them." How exactly does that help students?

But here's the most important question: who's responsible for ensuring that students are receiving an adequate education? Is it the poor pre-K teacher who can't even get her students to learn how to spell their names because the parents won't help them so they don't practice at all? Is it the parent, who is too busy with work and too exhausted when they get home to dedicate any time to the student? Is it the curriculum, that gives too much work to students or not enough work to students? Or is it the student who should take responsibility for his or her own education? 

Think about a 4 year-old little boy named Mikey. Mikey's parents work all the time and don't have time to read to him. Mikey is too little to know better, so he doesn't realize he is falling behind. In first grade, Mikey is already failing his basic classes. By fourth and fifth grade, his knowledge gaps are ever-widening and his reading is at a first grade level while his math is at a second grade level at best. 

Mikey then makes it to high school. If graded fairly, he'd be failing, but his school follows the rules of social promotion and he continues on his quest of non-education. 

After high school, Mikey starts a job in construction, but decides to get a degree at age 26. That's when I get Mikey in my math classroom. And Mikey is angry because he can't pass a single assignment. He blames me for not giving him all the tools he needs. Mikey doesn't remember the multiplication tables, so working with fractions or decimals is out of the question. Yet he's enrolled in a College Algebra course. Is it my responsibility to go back to pre-K and teach him from the ground up? 

And what about the administration of all these schools? From pre-K to college, who is responsible for setting the curriculum and ensuring the curriculum fits the needs of students? 

Who really is responsible for Mikey's education? And if you're thinking the parents need to be involved, think about this: what if he doesn't have parents or the parents can't be convinced? What can be done to ensure Mikey doesn't fall behind?