With all of the current discussions about education reform, what can we do to change the culture of our American society?  Education has taken a back seat in many households.  I see less and less parents coming to open houses and way too many parents are completely uninvolved in their children's education.  I teach high school Spanish, and more and more students are not completing homework or studying on a regular basis.  I just wonder what's going on at home after school with these kids?  What are their parents saying, if at all, about how school is going?  I don't see how we can reform education until our society places a higher value on education.  I firmly believe that if a parent does not view education as important, the student will never reach his/her potential, and it spirals downward from there.  I am concerned as I see our overall culture valuing education less and less.  Teachers try to hold students accountable, but parents intervene, expecting teachers to do more and more for their students, spoon-feeding them.  I don't see the value of intrinsic rewards, as many students always ask "will this be for a grade?".   How can we even begin to reform education if we don't have community/parental support???

Thank you for addressing what I see as the "sacred cow' of education reform.  Nobody will talk about how to increase the priority of education in cultural make-up of our society.  Education reformers want to grade the teachers based on a number of parameters not one of which takes into account the condition of the students' readiness to learn.   Where is the parent grade????

Hello!  These are some interesting comments!  I just want to state for the record that without parents, education is going to face even harder situations and scenarios than what currently exists.  I know that all of the educators are wondering how parents could be left out of the accountability process.  Check out my blog and and let's hammer out these issues!  Reform must be done poltiically.  I am interested in getting involved?  Are you?  I have written a book about this very subject.  An excerpt is posted on my blog!

www.todneyharris.com

http://therealworld-teachermant.blogspot.com/

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I am a parent and I totally agree that not enough parents are engaged in their children's education.  My child's school is a small, rural, k-12 school with less than 700 students.  We are the only school in the county with a PTO.  As I am an active member in this, I am constantly trying to get other parents involved -  to no avail.  The same 10 or so parents attend every meeting.  Unfortunately, only 5 or 6 teachers attend and that is disheartening too.  I feel to make educational successes there has to be enthusiastic participation between the students, the teachers and the parents.  I just don't see it happening.  There is alot of talk about this but no real answers.  In an ajoining county, the school system has made it mandatory for parents to participate  but the schools are still 'D'  schools.   I just have to ask - why isn't this important to everyone?

Wow... let me preface this statement by saying I am a Parent Educator, A Mother, School Board Director and incredibly Active community member.  A large part of the issues here is that we are, in our frustrations, pointing fingers instead of trying to understand each other.  Like anything else, there are parents who just should not be.  Now that I have gotten this out of the way, please understand most parents really do care what happens to their children; the process to being a partner can often be confusing to many and if you couple that with not truly understanding how to navigate the system ( questions to ask etc) then that very interested parent slinks into the background and remain annonymous to the dtriment of their child.  I propose that we strive to bridge that gap by having in depth workshops that are interactive, engaging  and  filled with solutions without blame for parents.  I have seen it work wonders in the communites we serve and it really isnt rocket science..A  large way to engage parents though is to be welcoming... do not just say with our lips we want them in the schools but with our body language as well which can be terribly off putting without us even know we are doing it.  At the end of the day, we all want the same thing; student success!!