Educators Lead "Take Your Kid To Work" Backlash

By Amy Perry in News on Apr 22, 2010 8:20PM

Today is the national “Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day” but some U.S. school districts across the nation urged parents to keep their kids in school and not bring them to work, according to WBBM. Educators feel the annual event should be skipped this year due to fears over the H1N1 virus (we don't get that one, either) and, more understandable, upcoming standardized testing that became important to public schools in 2002 when the No Child Left Behind law was enacted, linking standardized test results to federal funding. There are some school officials that admit it could be a valuable educational experience for kids to spend time with their parents at work, but they don’t feel like a student should miss even one day of school. For decades, many administrators have urged the Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Foundation to move the annual day to a school holiday or during the summer, but have had no luck. Guy Schumacher, the superintendent of Libertyville Elementary School District 70, said, "This year, of all years, to have a student miss a day for something like this that could be done anytime - it just seems the focus should be on students and their learning here."

Parents seem to be divided on the annual event. Some feel that it is a valuable experience for their children, while others claim it may not be worth missing out on what they could be learning in school. The New York Times raised an interesting point that many children already know what their parents do all day at work, since many bring so much work home with them. No one seems to be asking the kids if they find it valuable to see where their parents work all day. Although last November, Jade Ieshia Cage, a college freshman studying to be a lawyer, wrote a letter to Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown expressing that participating in the event "helped me decide what I want to do in my life."