This should be on a banner across every intersection.
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And I am continually shocked at how complacent most families are when it comes to their own community's public schools. It reminds me of the international comparison (TIMSS, I believe?) that found U.S. students had the highest confidence in their abilities, yet performed among the worst.
The overwhelming majority seem to think that they have 'excellent' schools, and that only other communities' schools are underperforming. Given the fact that it's usually the popular members of the community who get elected to the school board, and they too continue to believe their schools are 'excellent,' they tell community residents exactly what the residents want to hear - 'Our schools are excellent! and outstanding!' - regardless of the accuracy of that statement.
It is virtually impossible to get a school district to improve when they already believe they're exceptional and outstanding, and the community complacently eats this up as well.
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THis is a post from a very involved parent regarding a meeting at one of Seattle top high schools ( tied with my daughters- but while my daughters is "inner city" this school would have been where Bill Gates would have attended had he gone to public school)
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So last night at Roosevelt we had our final Parent Education night of the year. I was organizing these nights and I thought rather than having a formal program that I would get a panel and let parents engage them in a discussion about Roosevelt in specific and high schools in SPS in general. I invited our principal, Brian Vance, the high school director, Michael Tolley, and our Board director, Harim Martin-Morris. All of them showed up, ready to go. This had been in our parent newsletter for months, in the parent e-mail bulletin for months and we put it on the website in a prominent place for the last 2 weeks. (I also sent an e-mail two weeks ago to the PTAs at Eckstein and Hamilton, given that we get a lot of freshman from those two schools.)
We had about 12 parents show up.
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Twelve parents is more than the school ( where I had been on the PTA board but left after years of the same people being expected to do everything) that advertises itself as being a " family" and prides itself on community, but parental involvement is so poor, that at the most recent parent group meeting, where the board pleaded with parents to attend & for teachers to ask parents to come, in order to discuss whether they even had enough parental support to maintain the parent group- but only three parents who were not on the executive board came.
I have found that even at inner city schools, when parents participate in school events, kids do better- but I don't know what else that some schools can do to get them there.
WHen I was at our previous school, we ( the parent group) supplied dinner, child care and since it was an all city school, would hold meetings in areas that were more accessible. But still, it was the same parents-(who eventually went on to other schools,as did we),that ran the fundraisers, drove on field trips and bought supplies for classrooms.
and BTW, not a high income school or board.