Comment on a comment

my response to a reader's comment on Learning from Charter Schools.

First, my appreciation for your kind attention to my blog.


You are absolutely right. Parental involvement is probably the most influential factor in charter school success. But it is not an aspect that we can bring to public education.

However important is parental involvement; it is the aspect of the dynamic over which we have the least influence.

No cause is more hopeless than an effort to make parents care more about their kids; or to meaningfully mitigate the awful circumstances of a child's life outside of school.

While many argue that schools shouldn't be parenting; the only other option is that no one will.

Any plan predicated on fixing the home life of children, or on increasing parental involvement, in order to educate kids, is inherently doomed by our inability to influence their home life or the involvement of their parents.

We need to play the cards we've been dealt;
even if it means having to substitute something else
in place of parental involvement.