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Parent involvement is what makes the difference
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Three reasons I do what I do, Mr. Mayor.
I'm a divorced mother of three boys. All go to public school and my oldest is entering college in September. I've worked as many as three jobs and not for the latest name brand sneakers, but for basic needs like childcare. So even though I'm tired, I try to help my children's schools by volunteering. Like me, most of the parents who spend countless hours with Parent Teachers Associations, School Leadership Teams, Community District Education Councils and other ways, do so because there is no one else who represents the needs of our children, and has their interests at heart, as well as we do.
It's a labor of love and the fact that my livelihood isn't attached to this work means that my conscience is clear when I have decisions to make, either for myself or the parents I've represented. You would think that it would be a rewarding pastime for many, but most of the time it is thankless and frustrating. Some would wonder why we would even bother doing it at all. The answer is right there – for our children and for our school.
The administration publicly states, and the evidence has shown time and again, that parents are the "key", the deciding factor between the failure and success of their children. Yet when the cameras are off, we have no real say, as there no longer are quality mechanisms under the centralized school governance system to take our views into account. Our viewpoint is dismissed and our silence courted by the school system in the name of bureaucratic efficacy.
Few people realize that we have to become experts in fields that employees of the Department of Education are paid good money for, only we do it with our own time and money. Few people realize that in addition to full time jobs, we need to learn (with little or no assistance from the very people paid to train us) how to obtain, analyze and provide input in order to assemble school report cards, Comprehensive Education Plans and the Capital Plan for our school districts, as required by law, disseminate that information and be our own public relations people, or how to build coalitions and lobby for change. The Department of Education has a parent “engagement” department, yet we are forced to train and inform ourselves and beg for the smallest bit of data or resource.
We're maligned in the media by a mayor who trivializes issues that mean everything to us. Take the cell phone ban. We're pouring our hearts out because we're afraid for the safety of our children and he says on his radio show that we.re doing it for the celebrity.
NEWSFLASH – my children's future is worth more than a free lunch, a T-shirt or two minutes on TV. I'd rather be at home with the kids than out explaining why I need to make sure my kids get from one place to another o.k. How can the Mayor say he “gets it”, he's “in touch” with the life of a New Yorker, if he doesn't consult the very people most impacted by his policy decisions?
So why do I hang in there like everybody else? I see parent leaders making the difference, in spite of all those pitfalls. We are the crucial factor that the Mayor and Chancellor always seem to omit from their speeches when they're discussing what it takes to build a successful public school system. Parent involvement is what makes the difference when it comes to real and measurable success - - and you don't need a bubble test to figure that out.
David Rogers, a professor emeritus of the Stern School of Business, New York University, is a sociologist and student of organizational change in the private and public sectors. From his change management perspective, Rogers gives us fresh insights into the potential and disappointments of NYC's experiment with mayoral control of public schools.
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