October 3, 2006
Atlanta-Journal Constitution
Sharon N. Hill

We Georgians can disagree about many issues when it comes to public education, but on one crucial point we can all unite: If we want to transform public education in Georgia, "It Takes a Parent." That is the name of the new national Appleseed Report, the only one of its kind, released last week, that investigates how the No Child Left Behind Act looks to parent involvement as a central strategy to promote student academic achievement.

In 18 school districts across six states, including Georgia, Appleseed found the need for improvement at all levels: local, state and federal. The need for improvement at the national level was the primary motivator for some interviewees to participate in the Appleseed study; these interviewees embraced the opportunity provided by the report "to speak to the federal government" in anticipation of the NCLB reauthorization debate scheduled for next year.

While the report finds that high-performing schools made the important connection between meaningful parent involvement and success in the classroom, too many other schools, lacking sufficient guidance under NCLB, failed to make their parent involvement strategies a "core component" in their overall school improvement plans. Indeed, the bold vision of NCLB — that parents can act as full, participating partners in school success remains largely unfulfilled.

As one state education leader observed, the "common one-dimensional vision of parental involvement that it's about volunteering time for school functions or serving as a room parent — completely misses the mark." Indeed, the real promise of NCLB is its ability to give parents the information and tools they need to be better advocates for their children's education.

NCLB's focus on the collection and dissemination of test results rests upon a critical theory: that providing parents with more frequent and better reports about student and school performance will result in parents taking action to improve the educational outcomes of their children and the performance of their children's schools.

Some believe, however, that it is unrealistic to expect parents of our most at-risk children — parents who may be low-income, minimally educated or lacking in English language skills — to be part of the solution.

Published research shows that meaningful parent involvement leads to better school performance no matter how poor a family is, no matter how low the parent's own education level is, no matter what language is spoken in the home, and no matter the age of the student. As long as the parent cares and is involved, the child's school performance will improve. This is encouraging news.

Other critics point to the problem with the dissemination of the data: Parents are given test results in formats that are not readily understandable or come much too late to make a difference.

In response, Appleseed makes five recommendations to enhance meaningful parental involvement. Recommendations are found in the full report at www.appleseednetwork.org.

This national report is a plan of action for Georgia Appleseed and all willing partners to participate at the federal level in the NCLB reauthorization debate and to move forward locally to build a more just society in which no child is left behind.

Sharon N. Hill is executive director of the Georgia Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public interest law center.