Parent Leadership As a Solution

In Wednesday's St. Louis Post Dispatch, this story ran about the plight of under-performing schools in the St. Louis area. While the story has relevance to UrbanFUTURE's work in eliminating the achievement gap in the urban core, it is a string within some of the comments from readers that really resonates with what we are doing. Here a just a few of the comments.

"It does not matter what you do to the school. If education is not valued in the home; these schools will not perform at the level of districts with an educated parent population that stress the importance of lifelong learning." - w. champion

"As others have commented, educational failure is not all on the teachers. If parents* don't care at the original school, why would they suddenly care when their offspring is put in a new "high achieving" school?" - crissyboo

"That's right, champion: the success of the school depends on the commitment of the family....Most of my students NEVER hear the words, "is your homework finished?" or "Have you raised your grade up to a "B" in History?". These and the countless other words of encouragement from PARENTS make the difference in whether I, the student, will re-read the chapter, or re-write the essay, or review my class notes." - LGL

The last comment comes directly from a self-identified, St. Louis Public School teacher. These comments highlight exactly what UrbanFUTURE identifies as the key to helping students in under-resourced communities achieve: engage the parent as a leader.

That's why UrbanFUTURE requires parents and mentors to speak on a weekly basis to discuss goals, achievements, challenges. It's why UrbanFUTURE staff hold meetings for parents to learn the things they can do to help their child by working with them at home. It's why we ask parents to get involved at their child's school and stop by to see their daughter or son's teacher, not just at conferences, but throughout the year.

These things happen where resources are, but in areas where resources are lacking, the family is isolated from the community and the school. The Restoration Model provides a construct for parents to connect with teachers, community volunteers and each other. At UrbanFUTURE, we share in the sentiment of some of these commenters, because we know parent leadership is a major part of the remedy in turning around under-performing schools and re-invigorating neighborhoods.

Note: UrbanFUTURE does not endorse comments made on the highlighted article that are of a divisive nature. We only wish to comment on a common theme around parents' role in solving the issue of failing schools.