April, 2010

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction claims the number one principle in the field of community education to be self-determination, meaning; “Local people are in the best position to identify community needs and wants.” More notably, “Parents, as children's first and most important teachers, have both a right and a responsibility to be involved in their children's education.” Both federally and privately funded research have studied these notions, and verify the impacts of parental involvement in their children's education. They acknowledge the critical connections between schools and families, giving nod to the tendency for failure when they are separated. In these studies, conclusive evidence has been uncovered linking increased scholarly achievement with increased parental involvement. However, as conclusive as these studies have been, the American educational system has been overall, slow to act on these findings, and are just beginning to solidly implement programs that acknowledge these ties. Recently, Milwaukee has taken broad steps to actively engage parents in their children's education, working against the national trend of segregating school, and the home, into separate spheres.

On Sunday, February 28^th, 2010, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the Milwaukee Public School System will spend around $4 million in federal stimulus funds, over a two year implementation phase, to provide for programs that increase the involvement of parents in over 35 local public schools. Their aim is to utilize the positive effects of parental involvement found in research studies to stem the tide of ineffective schooling in the public sector, as well as put an end to the blame game traditionally played by both sides in the past which pinned the failures of education on either the inability of parents to educate at home, or the ineffectiveness of teachers within our schools.

To do this, MPS must overcome a series of hurdles which has disabled similar programs in the past. These include a lack of Parent Teacher Organizations (PTO's), backed by the inability to collect and maintain data on and for maintaining PTO's; ineffective communication between NGO's, educational non-profits, and our public school system, as well as communication issues between parents and teachers; and a lack of willingness on behalf of Milwaukee's parents to participate in such programs (recent data shows that only %2 of parents in Milwaukee are directly involved with their children's educational system). So what is being done.

This first major step in implementing change has been MPS's willingness to recognize their downfalls and to take a proactive stance in working towards a more effective educational model. To do this, MPS has personally begun to self-enforce legislation mandating the existence of parental involvement programs included, yet rarely governed, under the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. They have also worked directly with teachers to push for increased parental outreach, utilizing tactics such as home visits, and/or classroom invites. The intent in this approach is to allow parents to utilize teachers as a resource pool for any questions they may have pertaining their child's education, and to build working relationships with each parent set intended to promote increased involvement. With active participation and the proper resources at hand, parents are able to better navigate the educational system and provide necessary aid to their children, past the times they are allotted in school. Lastly, MPS has increased their funding, thanks to federal aid, of existing programs that pull parents back into the educational sphere. These programs include non-profits such as the YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, and Having Involved Parents, an offshoot of the COA Youth and Family Centers. It is the home of MPS, that a greater allotment of funds, given to parent outreach organizations, will fill the gaps that have allowed these programs to fail in the past.

When dealing with childhood education in our public educational sphere it is important to remember the greater picture of what is at stake, this, many times lost, to a division of resources between the home and our schools. The greater picture in this case is the future of our youth, which correlates directly, as the future of our own communities. By utilizing the principles suggested in the community education guidelines of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, and taught in Community Education programs around the world, we can begin mend the divides between communities and institutions, and can learn to work together, blame aside, for the betterment of all. Milwaukee has begun to prove that with commitment from families, from teachers, from the public system at large, and from the Federal Government, we can begin to build an educational system that works; one that holds not only the teachers or parents responsible for education, but places the culpability upon entire communities, dedicated to sustaining our future, and preserving our greatest asset -- the children.