“There is no one size fits all prescription for parental involvement and effective family engagement,”  U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told about 1,000 people at the Memphis Cook Convention Center during the 2010 National PTA Convention last Friday (June 11)

Arne Duncan

Duncan encouraged parents to continue supporting PTA.

“What matters is that parents engage in supporting children’s education, making sure children have a quiet place to study, organizing book drives or making brownies for the bake sale. Think ambitiously about how schools and districts and the federal government can do a better job in supporting effective family involvement. It is my vision for family engagement to have all families as real partners in education with their children’s teachers.”

In the partnership, students and parents should feel connected and teachers should feel supported, he said, adding that when parents demand change for better options for their children, they become the real accountability backstop for the educational system.

“We have to raise the bar for all of our nation’s children. When we tell them they are ready for college and in fact they are not, we need to stop lying to children when they most need your candor and help.”

Thanks to the PTA, there now are 48 states working together to raise the bar and set higher standards, said Duncan, who pitched that the Obama administration has posted more than $1 billion to support well-rounded education in high-need schools, including $265 million in grants to strengthen teaching and learning in the arts, foreign languages, history, civics and financial literacy. The administration, he said, is proposing to double funding for parental engagement.

Memphis City Schools Board Commissioner Betty Mallott, said she was excited to see how engaged parents from all over the country are, and how serious they are about education, their role as parents and transforming education.  

“I really appreciate when Arne Duncan gives the role of parents the importance it deserves. And that he understands that poverty doesn’t have nearly the effect on education as much as parental engagement or the lack of.  He actually says that the U.S. is planning to spend twice as much money on parental engagement for Title 1 in schools.  They really want to partner with National PTA and I think that is a really good sign too.”

Mallott said it will take a combination of accountable parents and phenomenal teachers to “transform our educational system”.

Memphis City School Board Commissioner Stephanie Gatewood said, “For a national leader to say I am supporting parental involvement and putting the dollars behind it to say how they are supporting it, is a huge shot in the arm of success and a ‘yes you can do it”.  

She and other elected officials have to do a better job of helping people realize the strength that they bring to the table, said Gatewood.

“Everybody doesn’t bring the same strength, but together as a unit with different strengths we can become successful….We need to help parents feel needed, you have to be a parent-friendly school and district.”