As issues like the FCAT exam in Florida and segregated proms in Georgia charge the air in educational circles, issues that are deservedly a hot button of debate, there is a bigger cancer that is thriving within our educational system. It affects every teacher, every student and every administrator. It affects the quality of education that our children receive and it results in many of our children growing up to be adults who wish that it had been different once they understand how important their education was. Oh, some go back to institutions of higher learning to rectify the malady but the opportunity to acquire a quality education at a time when the human brain is structured to be open to the learning process is passed by then. When the bigger picture is assessed it can be said that this blight affects our country more than war and economic strife combined. What is it you ask? It is the lack of involvement by parents in their child’s education and the demands they make of the teachers and school administration.

Hillary Clinton said it takes a village to raise a child and she couldn’t have been more wrong. The fact is the village has been charged with educating our children and they are doing a miserable job. There is nothing in the world, not an organization, a community group or a private organization that can affect a child’s education in a more positive way than a parent’s pro-active involvement. But with the win-at-all-cost attitude in play today, society is seeing many parents neglecting the responsibilities they have to their children and instead making increased demands on an overcrowded system while taking away vital tools that teachers and administrators need to do their jobs effective and to the best of their ability.

Each day teachers enter their classrooms prepared to educate the young minds of this country hoping to find that their exhaustive preparations and acquired teaching techniques make a difference. Yet each day when they enter their classrooms, a place where learning is supposed to be the order of the day, they are greeted with a classroom that has increasingly taken on the characteristics of some of the most troubled streets of our inner-cities complete with violence, disrespect, gang activity, charges of racism and an apathy towards the educational process that makes it a cause for celebration whenever a student actually turns in their assignments, forget about completing them correctly or with any diligence. In today’s classrooms it is considered a successful day if you can get the students to stop being aggressive towards one another and even then when a teacher tries to gain control of their classroom they are usually greeted with hostility, profanity, opposition and once again, disrespect. The fact that any educating gets done at all is a testimony to the diligence and patience these underpaid educational professionals possess.

So, why is the atmosphere in our school’s classrooms so awful? Why have the once nurturing domains of our educational institutions becoming more of a battleground for respect and seen as something to survive rather than the place of opportunity it should be? It is because the majority of parents are not involved with their children’s education. They aren’t pro-active with the educational process even on the student’s level and they are most definitely detached from the educational process on the teacher and administrator’s levels. This is precisely what their children see, apathy towards education, and being the impressionable people that they are (remember the structure of the young mind) it is exactly what the children emulate.

Many days teachers are confronted with children whose education has been so neglected by their parents the very thought of having to pay attention in the classroom is foreign to them. They have come to understand that school is a place that employs voluntary commitment and they embrace the thought that it is quite alright to "just get by” while their level of respect for the sovereignty of the classroom and the teacher’s authority has digressed into an almost non-existence. The incorporated policy of social advancement has left them with little to fear from teachers, school authorities, society and laws. Policies and directives in place restricting how the teachers and/or the administrators can respond leave them almost helpless to change the deteriorating environment of the classroom. In essence, the educators, both instructors and administrators alike, have their proverbial hands tied while the students, their attitudes apathetic as their education hangs in the balance, become more empowered as the days pass.

It used to be, if you are encumbered by age as I am, that if you were disobedient or disrespectful in the classroom you not only opened yourself up to the ire of the teacher but when you got home you had to confront angry parents who would no doubt punish you in some way that acted as a true deterrent to acting out in class. Not so long ago, it was important to embrace boundaries taught to us by our parents that came in the form of manners, respect and a work ethic that allowed the classroom to be utilized as a place of learning rather than a place to joust for social standing. Today, because of the mainstream distrust of authority and parental apathy of monolithic proportions almost exactly the opposite is the case.

In the "it’s-not-my-fault” society that we have come to live in if a student gets poor grades it is not the fault of the student or the lack of participation by the parent, it the fault of the teacher who hasn’t figured out how to individually cater to the student’s needs. It doesn’t matter if the student displays an attitude or is simply lazy; in the end the responsibility for the child’s education lies solely with the teacher and not with the student or their parents. In many cases, when the student is confronted with an intolerance to poor behavior in the classroom a variety of excuses are used to deflect the fact that proper behavior has not been employed on the students part.

Claims of racism abound when minority children are confronted with their poor behavior in the classroom. This is almost certainly a learned response from a tolerant society, self-righteous activists and parents that exploit an inequity that should be held in a more serious context. But as we exist in the "it’s-not-my-fault” society the idea it is racist that a student should be chastised for taking chewed gum and slamming it between pages of a school text book, screaming obscenities at the teacher or even threatening a teacher with physical harm is validated. Not only does this type of behavior stem directly from the parent’s lack of involvement in their child’s education it testifies to the lack of involvement in the child’s life. What is worse is that when a teacher calls to inform the parents of a problem or the total lack of respect the child is employing in the classroom it is not uncommon for the parent to take their child’s word over the teacher’s or the administrator’s charging them with the very ugliness that the child inflicted earlier in the day. This cannot be stressed enough, not only does the parent many times take the child’s word over the teacher’s but they will many times become aggressive towards the teachers and the administrators in the name of their child’s accusation. This is at the very least harmful to the child and the child’s education and at the very most a shame that we as a society must carry on our collective shoulders until we demand better of our children and ourselves.

But who is really to blame for the apathy, the disrespect, the lack of motivation and all the other things disruptive that are accepted in the classroom before education are the parents. It is the parent’s job to raise their children, not the village’s, as Hillary Clinton would have us believe. It is the parent’s responsibility to instill a work ethic, a respect and a hunger for education, a respect for the teacher and the administration, and a sense of responsibility for their own education into their children. Without direct involvement by a child’s parents in their learning process and the institutions that administer their education this educational apathy will only grow and our society will simply continue to churn out people with diplomas and degrees who have skated by doing the least they can do in order to fulfill the requirements institutions place on them for a piece of paper, not an education. Is it any wonder that a Bachelor’s Degree means nothing these days?

In an effort to leave no child behind with regard to education, President Bush has placed educational achievement above social advancement. This requires the students to actually learn what is being taught in the classroom. But most students being children, they do not grasp the seriousness of the issue and for that reason the president’s initiative is attached to any given school district’s purse strings. It’s all about the money and that is something that adults understand or at least they should. Sadly, sometimes the only way that apathetic adults understand the seriousness of the situation is when it is too late and this time their children’s futures are at stake.

It’s like they say, you need a license to drive but anyone can have a child.

Frank Salvato is a political media consultant and the managing editor for The New Media Journal.us. He is a contributing writer for The Washington Dispatch, GOPUSA, OpinionEditorials, Men’s News Daily, Canada Free Press & AmericanDaily. His pieces are regularly featured in Townhall.com. He has appeared as a guest on The O’Reilly Factor, The Kevin Matthews Radio Show (Chicago) and The Brad Messer Radio Show (San Antonio). His pieces have been recognized by the Japan Center for Conflict Prevention and are occasionally featured in The Washington Times and The London Morning Paper as well as other national and international publications.