At least, we are not alone

While I haven't been writing much lately, I have been reading quite a bit.

I am currently reading a book titled "Class Warfare" by a political science professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Unlike the writing of most poli/sci professors, this book does not report the findings of some elaborate research project, rather Prof. Rochester chronicles his family's personal experiences with public education in the St. Louis area.

As he writes in his opening notes, "To the extent that I indulge in telling my own private horror stories, I do so strictly for the purpose of illustrating the bigger picture of educational theories and practices run amok and exposing the failures of our precollegiate education system."

Rather than document the K-12 educational climate of St. Louis, MO in the 1980s and 1990s, Prof. Rochester could have been writing a case study of Orange County, NC in 2007.

"We certainly should not write off the public schools. We need to make them more responsive to parents. The director of governmental relations for the National PTA has stated that parental involvement is 'mostly just rhetoric. Parents are out of the decision-making loop.' The president of the Institute for Responsive Education says similarly 'It's common for school districts to plunge ahead with change efforts with no prior discussion with the community about the need for - or goals of - change.'

The conventional mode of parental involvement in schools is the PTA, where it is generally expected one will not get immersed in curriculum matters and, in any event, will not make waves. As a parent activist in Greenwich, CT says, 'The issues addressed by the PTA have nothing to do with the academic performance of children. They are more concerned about funding for the playground and the social aspects of children... They [the administration] don't really want parents involved."

That sounds pretty familiar to me. The Orange County Board of Education did not launch its "community listening sessions" until after they had "plunged ahead" and voted to adopt Dennis Whitling's "Big Plan."

Also, there was no effort to involve parents at either school, individually or through the respective PTAs, until the Board needed a convenient supply of parents for a handful of "Task Force" slots. But, even then, the number involved was kept small enough to ensure they would have little real control over the process that most directly impacts their children.

I look forward to reading more of Prof. Rochester's prophecies for Orange County. It's a page-turner.