For the past decade, I have wondered why parents are not clamoring for more when it comes to their kids’ education. While conducting focus groups – in school districts where proficiency rates for underserved students were mind-blowingly low – parents would tell us their kids were “doing fine” academically. I was stunned. How could they be so mistaken?
Resources are available to help students who aren’t working at grade level. But somehow parents are not recognizing that their own child is in need of help. States and school districts are spending billions of federal COVID relief dollars to provide tutoring, summer school, and extra instructional time. Yet there is very little demand for these services. Even when excellent academic resources are easily accessible, parents are not making use of them.
This month, Gallup and Learning Heroes published a survey of K-12 public school parents that reveals a shocking fact –
Parents are a formidable force, and it is time to get them off the sidelines of education. In the short term, parents need to go beyond their child’s report card grades to find out if their child is working at grade level. In the long term, schools need to create processes and space for meaningful, data-based parent-teacher partnerships.
Parents belong in the education process, and they need to know how their child is really doing at school. No one is more committed to seeing their child succeed.
Cindi Williams is co-founder of Learning Heroes and a Principal at HCM Strategists. She is a Baylor graduate and former senior official in the George W. Bush White House and U.S. Department of Education. Williams is the proud mom of two sons who have been educated in public schools.
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