How do you think the Department of Education should educate parents? Should districts also educate parents abo

Question

Unfortunately, some parents don' t make an educated decision, because they don't know where to gain the knowledge. How do you think that the Department of Education should educate parents? Should the districts also educate parents about their schools?

Answer 1

I agree with you that parents need support so they can make sound educational decisions.

The Department of Education has provides educational materials for teachers to use in educating parents.  For example, to help parents understand why certain elements were included in the literacy part of the No Child Left Behind program, the DOE published a very nice pamphlet explaining each of them, such as phonics, decoding, phonemic awareness, fluency and comprehension.   They used parent friendly language and gave examples.  I used these in workshops with teachers.  I am not part of the DOE, but I was able to get sets for free off their website.

Entities like the DOE and school districts do not take the primary responsibility for educating parents, though.  Certain funded programs and certain districts require that schools provide some form of parent education.  Head Start is one of these.  My school had a parent education center.  A staff member was responsible for holding sessions on different aspects of early childhood education and parenting.  

At the same time, teachers were provided with Take Home Tuesday folders.  They had our school logo on them.  We sent them home with students on Tuesdays (of course).  I always had a parent newsletter explaining in both English and Spanish what we were studying and how parents could help their students.  For struggling students we provided Homework Baggies, which were plastic zippy bags with game materials and directions.  These did not go home every week, but we had excellent cooperation from our parents in using them with their children.  I was impressed at how parents took these seriously and worked with their students.  It made my work as a teacher much more pleasant -- working with the parent and not being an adversary as I have seen happen.

I think parent education is so important because you can set a tone that you care about each and every child and that you will do your best to educate them as much as you can.  That and quarterly conferences with parents set a very positive tone.  I found my student achieved at a higher level with this kind of support.