ED, blaming the parents

Last night I attended a meeting of the Proviso Township Democratic Organization, the organization associated with Democratic Committeeman Karen Yarbrough. The meeting introduced the candidates the organization is supporting for District 88 (Bellwood and Stone Park elementary schools), District 89 (Maywood and Melrose Park elementary schools) and District 209 (Proviso Township High Schools), as well as some candidates for other local offices.

A common meme in discussing education is that parents aren't involved enough.

A recurring story among parents who are running for school board is that they tried to get involved, but they were discouraged by teachers or administrators.

Here's what I suspect is happening in schools that serve Black children.

Many of the schools serving large Black populations have problems. For example, Proviso Township High Schools recently ranked 90th of 90 high school districts in the Chicago area.

When high functioning parents get involved in these schools they want to fix problems. The schools have teachers, administrators, school board members, etc. who aren't doing right by the children.

The high functioning parents figure that since teachers and administrators are drawing healthy paychecks from the taxpayers that they ought to be held accountable.

When teachers and administrators lament the lack of parental involvement, they don't want more parents holding them accountable. They want parents to play a supporting role to the education. Teachers and administrators want parents to ensure the students come to school ready to learn (rested, fed and possessing a reasonably positive attitude toward the educational process). Teachers and administrators want the parents to help enforce disciplinary standards. And teachers and administrators want the parents to get the students to do their homework.

However, the first parents that try to get involved--the high functioning parents--tend to be doing all these things already. So the teachers and administrator complain that parents aren't involved while simultaneously trying to freeze out the parents who do get involved.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I hypothesize this is the problem. The high-functioning parents who get involved are already doing what they are supposed to be doing. They want the teachers and administrators to be held accountable for doing the things they are paid to do. The teachers and administrator want the less than high functioning parents to do the things high functioning parents do to support education, but without criticizing the teachers and administrators.