(Vol. 3, No. 2 - Fall 1999)
The Public's Schools
When the National Education Goals Panel surveyed American parents and asked
how often they helped their children with homework, 64 percent of elementary
school parents reported "very often." Middle school parents? 14
percent.
Parent involvement expert Anne Henderson (who works often in the Louisville
schools) tells of a group of weary middle grades teachers in Los Angeles
who "exploded with anger" when a consultant suggested they could
improve student achievement by having some meaningful contact with every
family. "What are you talking about?" they demanded. "How
could we possibly have time to talk to their families? The school gives
us no support for that."
At a meeting in Louisville last spring, a frustrated middle school parent
literally threw up her hands when she said, "There's no trust. So many
parents are intimidated by teachers. And so many teachers are intimidated
by parents. So we stand off at a distance and blame each other for the failure
of kids we're all responsible for."
Does parent involvement really matter in middle school? Absolutely, says
Henderson. "The decline in parent involvement as their children enter
adolescence could not occur at a worse time, since it is just at this point
that other forces in youngsters' lives are beginning to compete with school
for their time and energy."
Continuity between home and school is key, says Joyce Epstein, director
of the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins
University. The more students are supported by a network of adults who are
committed to their success, the more likely they are to feel comfortable
and valued and to be engaged with their school work.
These researchers can point to reams of evidence that meaningful middle
school parent and community involvement improves discipline, boosts student
achievement, and increases students' chances of success in high school and
beyond. But it's clear from interviews and school visits that many JCPS
middle schools have not made the kind of powerful connection with parents
that can produce these results. Why?
Fear, and a lack of faith in the process, seem to be the most likely explanations.
Many principals and teachers complain that parents don't want to get involved.
"If they don't care, we'll just have to do the best we can without
them, in the six hours we have their children each day." When parents
do show up at school, some educators say, more often than not they are there
to criticize or demand special treatment for their child.
Turn to the other side and you hear from parents that schools talk about
family involvement, but they want tight control over the process. While
many schools welcome parent volunteers who will help raise money, go on
field trips, or run the copy machine for teachers, they are much less willing
to involve parents in conversations about the school's effectiveness.
In the Jefferson County Public Schools, district leaders have taken the
public position that parent involvement is important. As the stories on
page 3 and 11 indicate, JCPS now sponsors many programs and activities aimed
at middle grades parents. Parent activists in the Louisville community,
who have long complained that the district was not deeply committed to meaningful
parent involvement, are encouraged by these developments and hope they signal
a "thawing out" process that will one day end the often-chilly
relationship between assertive parents and cautious educators.
In the end, though, the campaign to make parents and community members equal
partners in school reform will be waged school by school. "Sometimes
I think that the opinions of the people at the top do not really have much
of an impact on the way relationships develop at the school level,"
says UPS executive Cindy Read, a long-time supporter of school-parent partnerships.
"I've seen great teamwork on a micro level where it benefited students,
and I've seen every possible sin committed by all parties to the detriment
of student learning. And parents aren't blameless either."
Can JCPS schools and communities "get past the blame" - as educators
and parents at Conway Middle School (page 7)
are working to do - and team up to help middle school kids achieve more?
The kids sure hope so.
-- John Norton, editor, Focused Reporting Project
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