Isn’t it great when a politician makes some sort of gaffe and the public gets all worked up over it? Who doesn’t like when the media takes some words out of context, turns them on their head and then repeats them over and over until people are outraged and someone’s credibility is hurt?
In a Washington Post Live event about education and reform last week, Governor Phil Bryant discussed some steps that Mississippi was taking to improve the state’s education system as well as issues surrounding the nation’s education as a whole.
After talking about many issues, causes and symptoms, the moderator asked Bryant why the nation’s system was so mediocre. Bryant responded by saying that it started when “both parents started working, and the mom is in the workplace.” This raised the ire of many in the media, including many who admitted that they actually had not heard Bryant, only took the quote from another source and ran with it.
Almost every article about the supposed gaffe failed to include the next sentence from Bryant’s mouth: “That’s not a bad thing.”
So, what is Bryant saying? Essentially, Bryant is saying that women in the workplace, which has many great benefits, has played a role in the decline of education. Not because of anything that women have or have not done.
Studies show that one of the most telling demographics for student success is parental involvement in education, more than IQ, race, or income level (though some are similar). Students with parents that are more involved in their child’s education have higher educational outcomes. Examples of such involvement include PTA meetings, calling out vocabulary, and keeping track of grades.
Other studies show that a parent’s involvement decreases significantly when he or she has a full-time job. Additionally, people are bringing their work home more and more. The average working adult spends an extra hour-and-a-half nightly working at home. That means that is an extra hour-and-a-half nightly that parents are not involved in their child’s education.
Obviously, these are generalizations. Also, Bryant did not get his point across in the best (or even really a good) way. However, the truths are still there.
Now, Bryant is not saying that working women are responsible for the decline in education. Nor is he saying that women should stop working. However, that is exactly what the majority of the media and public seem to have heard.
So, of course the people that read the quote took the time to check the real context and garner the point that Bryant was trying to make, right? Well that was not the way it turned out.
I encourage you to look at the context of what someone says next time such a situation comes up, and make sure you have understood the meaning before criticizing the speaker.
Trenton Winford is a public policy leadership major from Madison.
