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NCLB, Parents & Communities
Three related issues about the role of parents and communities, and the
proper implementation of the law, have emerged: the ability of parents to make
decisions for their children under SES and transfer provisions; the ability of
parents and other community members to help improve schools based on
school performance information; and, finally, the unintended consequences
of “labeling,” and the need for community support to remedy the isolation of
schools and address the needs of students.
Transfer & SES
NCLB mentions parent involvement literally hundreds of times and parent
empowerment is the basis of the law’s two major interventions. Parents can
request the transfer of their children from a consistently low-performing school
to a high-performing one; they can request supplemental educational services,
primarily after-school tutoring, for their children; and they can select the
provider of these services.
According to hearing testimony, however, the transfer option is not being used
very often, nor is it what parents want. Furthermore, communication about and
quality of supplemental educational services has not met expectationsfivery
few witnesses even brought up the transfer option. Those who did, criticized it
for diverting resources that should be available to help struggling schools. One
Massachusetts witness said 5,000 parents in her district were noti.ed that they
were eligible to ask for transfers, but only two schools were qualified to accept
transfers. It cost one Florida county $1.8 million to provide SES and, since this
money came out of Title I funds, it left many schools facing a reduction in Title I
services. In addition, it is the more proficient students who are taking advantage
of transfer and SES options. Joie Cadle, a member of the Orange County
School Board, in noting that transfers increased the problem of mobility and
overcrowding, commented: “We need to be able to work with children at their
neighborhood schools. That’s where their base is, that’s where their friends are,
that’s where their parents’ support networks are. When we start moving children
and they ride forty-five minutes on a bus to a school, the likelihood that they’re
going to get involved in any remediation after school does not exist because
the bus only goes once and we have to use our buses three times a day. So,
keep them in their home schools, allow us to give them the remediation they
need and allow their parent network to stay there for them.”
According to Chicago parent advocate Julie Woestehoff, parents in her city
endorse support for floundering schools. “The parents who call us,” she said,
“are sending the federal government a clear message: ‘Don’t tell me to move
my child to another school – help me make my child’s school better.’”
SES was more popular, but parents and community members believe school
districts either lack the capacity or are unwilling to provide the information
they need to make appropriate decisions regarding SES. Witnesses said the
information was not available, or was incomprehensible, or needed to be
translated into home languages. Furthermore, there appears to be no entity
that is monitoring the provision or quality of supplemental educational services
(SES), or even the noti.cation of parents about their availability. Both parents
and SES providers blame districts for a communications gap. Parents report
that they often receive information about the opportunity to enroll their child
in SES just as the deadline is about to pass; in addition, the information is
not written clearly, and is not translated into home languages. When parents
do receive information about what different providers have to offer, it is often
inaccurate and students do not receive services as they were described.
On the flip side, SES providers in Michigan said some parents made little
effort to become aware; 40 providers came to a meeting to describe their
programs, but only two parents showed up. Parents may not understand the
SES application process, said Dorene Smith Bey, afterschool consultant and
member of the Detroit Parent Network, but the district also engages in “game
playing” to prevent students from benefiting from these services.
Availability of Information
NCLB is based on the principle that parents will be able to make good
decisions and demand improvements if they have reliable information.
Testimony given at the hearings makes it clear that school officials have a
communications problem, and it starts with the very basis of NCLB, namely,
test-based accountability. Students testified that they were never told the
reasons for testing or the rationale behind the law. Several reported doing
research on their own and reaching conclusions that were almost always
negative. Citing the denseness of the language, one student wondered if those
who voted for the law had ever read it. When parents and others received
information about the status of schools or their choices under the law, it was
most often in language that was inaccessible. Said Gamal Mack, a county PTA
member: “You’re talking way over our heads a lot of the time when you talk
about studies and data and so on....You can take all the data you want, you can
throw it at us all you want, but if we don’t understand it, it is useless data.”
This raises significant issues about requirements under NCLB to provide
parents with information on issues such as the qualifications of their children’s
teachers and the performance of their schools and districts. It also raise issues
on how to get parents involved in addressing the needs of low-performing
schools, as required by NCLB. At best, school officials do not know how to
communicate effectively with parents and they give this NCLB requirement a
low priority. At worst, district officials deliberately withhold information and are
hostile to parent involvement. In Oakland, parents and parent organizers had
to threaten school officials before they were allowed to become involved in
the planning process for schools that were being reconstituted, even though
their participation is guaranteed by the law. Parents with the most dif.culty in
this arena are those whose children have disabilities and those whose children
are English-language learners. The problem is not with the law, said a Boston
parent advocate, but with poor implementation of the law at all levels.
Community Support
One issue NCLB does not address, but witnesses considered critical, is
the impact of the law on the strength and sense of community around lowperforming
schools. In fact, one unintended consequence of the law is its
potential to weaken community building within and around schools. AYP
calculations, for example, have led to the scapegoating of certain sub-groups
of students. The focus on test scores has also undermined highly successful
partnerships between teachers and parents according to testimony in Texas.
Students testi.ed about the effect of attending a school labeled “in need of
improvement,” a term witnesses said could only be translated as “failing.”
As Heather Loomis, a Columbus high school student said, when a district or
school receives a low grade “it reflects on the community. Who wants to attend
a failing school? Better yet, what parent wants to live in a community where the
schools are failing?”
Witnesses protested NCLB sanctions that demoralize community support for
schools because they believe that families and communities are essential
to achieving the goals of NCLB. The law, many testified, should encourage
families to take responsibility for the quality of education and should help
them develop the leadership skills needed to do so. There was some hopeful
testimony at several hearings that described how low-performing schools had
been “turned around” by a marshaling of community support or by intensive
support from the business community. In order for schools to do their job
effectively, they cannot work alone. Indeed, the public called for schools to
share responsibility for student success with community agencies and partner
organizations. This will require increased capacity on the part of the school
districts and the partnering organizations, but these arrangements are critical
for meeting the needs of students and their families.
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