Urgent Message: Families Crucial To School Reform: Anne Henderson
Urgent Message: Families Crucial To School Reform: Anne Henderson
Urgent Message: Families Crucial To School Reform: Anne Henderson
T
he vision of higher standards to be achieved by every student is the most
ambitious challenge American public education hasever faced. For the first
time in our history, the nation has adopted policies that promise all students—
rich and poor, no matter where they live, the language of their family, or how long
it takes them to learn—a quality education.
We know how to create a quality educational environment for all children, teach-
ers, and parents. Participants at a 1997 national conference on advancing family
and parental involvement in school reform agreed the following are required:
• Families, schools, and communities working together for children.
• Accountability measures that hold everyone responsible for improving stu-
dent achievement.
• Strategies that increase the capacities of educators, families, and
students to teach and learn to high standards.
In schools that try to embody these characteristics, neither the schools nor par-
ents working alone can help children make noticeable progress. Quality education
for all comes about through informed, focused, and collaborative efforts by edu-
cators, students, and parents who hold high expectations for themselves.
Unfortunately, such schools exist in only a few places. As a result, parents who
can afford to are seriously considering opting out of traditional public schools be-
cause they can’t sacrifice their children to such slow change. About 44% of par-
ents responding to the 1997 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll approved of letting par-
ents choose a private school at public expense. Three years earlier, only 24% ap-
proved of the idea.
Even the most ardent believers in raising standards for schools and students
worry about how long it is taking to move to a public school system committed to
the success of every child. The slow pace of change allows critics of public edu-
cation to press for more radical changes that could undermine support of public
education even further.
Henderson, A. T., & Berla, N. (1994). A new generation of evidence: The family is critical
to student achievement. Washington, DC: Center for Law and Education.
Public Agenda Foundation. (1993). Divided within, besieged without: The politics of edu-
cation in four American school districts. New York: Author.