Not Without Parents
The recent study on public education conducted by this newspaper and the Pew Charitable Trusts concludes that "despite 15 years of earnest efforts to improve public schools and raise student achievement, states have not made much progress." ( Quality Counts , Jan. 22, 1997.) More is required by the states than mere development of rigorous academic standards. Preparing all children for the 21st century will necessitate the creation of an organizational and democratic capacity to get the standards accepted and implemented at the classroom level. As Richard A. Gibboney warns in his book The Stone Trumpet , "Widespread and fundamental school reform will only come when the larger society demands and forces it." Why is it surprising, then, that the new standards are not having more of an impact, when most states and communities have not built the capacity for the larger society to become involved. Or, put in another context, how is it possible to implement 21st century standards with 20th century models of citizen and parent participation?
The second national education summit, held one year ago this month, typifies the problem. Cloistered in Palisades, N.Y., the nation's governors and selected business people with high-level consultants met to recommend the public education future of over 51 million schoolchildren and their parents. But this was hardly a conference celebrating the ordinary parent or the larger society.
If you are a parent in Charleston, W.Va., barely eking out a living and concerned about resource shortages in your child's school; or a single parent in Washington, D.C., wondering when and if federal school appropriations are ever going to be allocated; or a family in Lexington, Ky., experiencing at last the positive impact of a state reform plan stressing parental involvement, how seriously will you take the education summit's recommendations? What does listening to the promises of governors and CEOs about education quality profit an unemployed parent in East Los Angeles if her children's school building is falling apart, its class sizes increasing, while the opulence of Beverly Hills is staring her...
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