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July 8, 2009
Next debate: what should more parental involvement look like?
The Senate may be nearing an agreement on mayoral control, but now there’s a new debate — over how to increase parental involvement, and what involvement means.
At the center of the debate are the two parent groups most actively lobbying Albany, and each has its own slightly different vision.
The Parent Commission on School Governance is pushing for a kind of parent union, which it calls an Independent Parent Organization and Training Academy.
According to Patricia Connelly, a member of the Parent Commission, the organization would act like a think tank-cum-lobbying force for parent advocate groups and would be modeled on the now-defunct United Parent Association.
“It can be a place where people come together and learn from one another,” Connelly said, adding that the group would also do research and train less experienced parents.
“Right now we don’t have an institutionalized role and people say well there’s OFEA [Office of Family Engagement and Advocacy], but that’s just an arm of the Department of Education and it’s more about delivering PowerPoint presentations rather than what we really need to know to be effective advocates,” she said.
The Independent Parent Organization would begin under the aegis of a nonprofit, said Steven Bell, a member of the 3R’s Coalition — a group that’s also backing the proposed organization — but would work toward becoming independent. It would have a chapter in each school district and hold elections to fill its ranks.
According to Bell, Sampson’s staff told the Independent Parent Organization’s supporters that they should aim for funding in the range of $3 to $5 million for the project, which would be paid for entirely through state education money.
Shomwa Shamapande, a spokesman for the Campaign for Better Schools — a group that wants to modify mayoral control — said the Campaign was opposed to the idea of an organization that didn’t have parent training as its central focus.
Tensions between the two groups center on concerns about diversity.
While the Parent Commission maintains that its vision of citywide chapters would attract diversity, the Campaign for Better Schools urges a focus on parents who wouldn’t otherwise get involved.
The Campaign’s own plan calls for the creation of a Citywide Parent & Student Leadership Center, which would offer training for parents and students in navigating the city’s public school bureaucracy.
The Leadership Center would focus on schools with weak or virtually non-existent Parent Associations and schools with a majority of African-American, Latino, low-income, and immigrant students. The Campaign is asking for $5 million in funding for the Center, which would be attached to a nonprofit.
Shamapande said the Center’s training would emphasize ways to get bilingual education and special needs students the proper instruction.
Connelly said the Parent Commission would welcome a training center in addition to the Independent Parent Organization. “I don’t think we’re in contradiction with other plans,” she said. “We’re complementary.”
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July 8th, 2009 8:53 am
Here’s a much more simple, cost effective, and empowering idea than another state-funded bureaucratic political entity….Give all parents choice in the school their children attend, regardless of geography. Let them choose good ones, leave bad ones, and generally have their voice heard by finding a fit that is right for their own family.
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July 8th, 2009 9:12 am
The UPA was a corrupt and terrible organization and should not be revived. If parents want to organize, why don’t they just organize themselves? The reason is that parents are not some monolithic body that can just be lumped together. There is a huge diversity of incomes, races and education level in public school parents, and so it’s a given that parents do not want the same things. I’ve written before that I’m happy with the level of participation and interaction I have with my child’s school; others are not, so do you think “being organized” means the same thing to me (an upper middle class parent) as it would a poor parent. The answer’s no.
I would be highly suspect of any effort to “organize parents” that focuses on the government providing them funds to get organized. If that’s not institutionalization of a movement, nothing else is. -
July 8th, 2009 9:32 am
I was a person who benefited form UPAs activities in the far distant past. While there may have been problems in the last few years….a lack of leadership being the biggest issue…I take great exception to your comment about corruption.
As far as organizing parents go, there is only one way to organize, door by door, house by house, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. That kind of money, 3-5 million dollars, will not create unity, just suspicision. -
July 8th, 2009 10:23 am
Greg,
The two topics are hardly mutually exclusive: parent input and school choice.
Note that there is NONE of the first part city-wide, and in many cases “choice” is being made by DOE not by the parents, both in terms of school assignment and creating of charters in otherwise non-charter public school buildings.
I would suggest it’s a triply false choice.
In a free market “supply & demand” model, the supply side would provide more of a product in high demand (setting pricing issues aside). But in NYC, many high-demand schools have been limited in their ability and willingness to expand. In this regard, Principals are hardly CEO’s. (And I’m not talking class size — I’m talking building size.)
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July 8th, 2009 10:35 am
Parent involvement should be centered on the idea of parents talking by phone to teachers. Frequently.
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July 8th, 2009 10:49 am
GGW,
(With humor…)
My kids’ teachers aren’t paid enough to listen to me on the phone. ; - )And that does nothing about all the policy-making outside the classroom that directly impacts their education — and $22 BILLION of the city’s budget.
Plus, I have not heard ANY gripes at the in-class level from others… except as driven by test-mania from Tweed.
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July 8th, 2009 11:44 am
These things sound very nice and useful–it’s been esp clear to me how involvement in a local school is a sort of starter drug for larger community involvement, and could be very empowering for communities. But on the level of governance I don’t think there is going to be meaningful change unless parents–and I would say, more broadly, the public–has a meaningful structural presence in policymaking. Otherwise you’re just training more people to be driven bananas the way we active parents are now.
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July 8th, 2009 12:43 pm
Parents should not be involved in citywide policy making. More voice at their school/community level, sure, but citywide policy making, get real. The city is too diverse for non-elected officials to start setting policy. At some point you just gotta rely on the principles of representative democracy and make good decisions in the voting booth. If you want to set public policy, get an MPA, become an expert, run for office etc. Just because it’s easier to scream and shout and create a bunch of BS positions to satisfy the ego of every parent-wannabe politician doesn’t make it a legitimate way to run things.
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July 8th, 2009 1:00 pm
Aw phooey….the VAST majority of parents are invovled and engaged…they work to provide a home, they help with homework, they feed clote and protect their children, they help their children strive to succeed. I do not know one parent who wants their child to fail.
The issue is public particpation in education for all children -
July 8th, 2009 2:44 pm
Talk about parent engagement: how about VOLUNTEERING in the school on a day to day basis? 12,000 people (mostly parents) do this through Learning Leaders. This is a great way to be involved in a school’s success. Ask your Parent Coordinator if your school has a volunteer program. If not, call LL and request one. For more information: http://WWW.LEARNINGLEADERS.ORG.
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July 8th, 2009 4:46 pm
New Yorker:
We voted for term limits. What happened to THAT — or should I say THOSE — trips to the “voting booth”?That the city is “diverse” is all the more reason it should be run, if not like a giant caucus, than at least by some people qualified for their positions and with an open ear to earnest input.
Lack of an open ear for community level input, and related compliance with the just-expired law, is exactly why two CEC’s SUED the Chancellor Klein and the DOE.
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July 8th, 2009 8:03 pm
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