As the old cliche goes experience is the best teacher and it can be applied parent involvement reading. Through my experience parents in minority schools enjoy complaining rather than channeling their energy towards bringing change through collectively working together. In fairness not all parents fall into the above assertion of complaining and doing nothing. Those parents that value education and have endured their own obstacles in pursuit of it are the exception. I find with these parents no matter how hectic their life are they will stop at nothing to be an intergal part of their child’s education.
One area in the reading that focus on the reasons why parents my feel comfortable being involved is the section titled Sense of Welcome. I think there were some great points made on why parents may value their child education and how this may determine the level of their involvement. The section further discusses how sending correspondence in native languages may encourage those same parents. All true, but the adverse has to be spotlighted as well, which is some schools intentionally don’t want parents to can get involved.
Minority parents tend to be the victims of schools not welcoming them in fear they will see and know how these schools are actually being ruined. As parents their lays a right to end it corruption in these schools. Schools are continuing to enforce the unwritten rule: the less parents involved the better. Parents need to educate themselves on the policies that are in place so they can began to mobilize in schools. They don’t need their personal monies because its in the budget for them already to be involved outside of motivating their kids.
I know during our class discussion some of us thought its was a good idea to send correspondences in some of the languages found in the school, but not others. If an exception is made for one group it should be made for all. This is another tool schools use to exclude parents and stop them from becoming involved. Parents need to really wake up.
