ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 29, 1996 TAG: 9603290084
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SAN JOSE, CALIF.
SOURCE: SARAH LUBMAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
AFTER YEARS OF BEGGING mom and dad to get involved, educators are getting more than they bargained for.
When Dublin Unified School District in California wanted to close an elementary school to save money, parent Dave Crowfoot did what came naturally: He demanded to see the figures.
As an investment planner for Pacific Gas & Electric Corp., Crowfoot was hardly fazed by arcane school-district finances. He ferreted out potential savings officials had overlooked, and the school stayed open.
``That's my job - look at the numbers and ask questions,'' Crowfoot said.
Across San Francisco Bay, two female professionals in Mountain View are pushing their children's district to create a long-term business plan. In San Jose, an influential parents' group has demanded a school district management audit. And Parents for Public Schools, a national advocacy group in Jackson, Miss., urges parents to ``monitor'' their school systems.
For years, schools have implored parents to pitch in. These days, though, sophisticated, well-educated parents such as Crowfoot are giving educators far more than they bargained for. And already-stressed school officials often resent the unsought advice.
No longer are parents just demanding to know where their tax dollars go; increasingly, they're tapping their professional expertise to pressure school districts into spending wisely.
Parents' growing pushiness reflects intense anxiety over the quality of public education, combined with fundamental social shifts. Californians ranked education second only to crime and violence as the state's most pressing issue in a recent poll by Policy Analysis for California Education, an independent research group. Steady rises in both education levels and the number of working mothers have also made parents more outspoken.
``It used to be the case that teachers and principals were the highest-educated people in the community, so people looked up to them,'' noted David Tyack, a Stanford University education professor. ``Now, though, there are an awful lot of parents out there with advanced degrees who aren't intimidated by educators with master's degrees, and they feel they have every right to assert themselves.''
By 1993, one in five Americans had a bachelor's degree or greater, compared with one in 12 in 1960.
The proliferation of educated, working parents would seem to mean less time for them to get involved in schools, let alone to pore over budgets. But Christine Davis, executive director of a Philadelphia advocacy group called Parents Union, sees no contradiction. Precisely because parents have less time, ``they want their participation to have some meaning to it,'' Davis said. ``They don't just want to send in a dozen cupcakes anymore.''
Certainly, connecting with parents is still a challenge for many schools, especially in big urban districts. But involved parents often want hard information on how districts are run, and a host of sources are providing it:
* EdSource, a California education think tank, has fielded so many calls from parents wanting to understand school funding that it published a booklet on the topic.
* SchoolMatch, an Ohio consulting firm, analyzes school systems for corporations and relocating families by comparing data such as district expenditures and test scores. In the past few years, the company has had a growing number of requests from parents who want to put their own district under the microscope.
* The California PTA got into the act with a 1995 manual that tells members they have ``a right and a responsibility'' to be budget watchdogs.
``Parent involvement in the budget didn't used to exist to the degree it does now,'' said Pat Dingsdale, education commission chair of the National PTA. ``Based on conversations I've had with state PTA presidents, they're all experiencing more participation from parents seeking accountability.''
Crowfoot, 36, is one of them. His local elementary school was going to be shuttered last year, and Crowfoot wasn't satisfied with the reason. Dublin Unified officials had said they needed more classroom space, and estimated they could save $1 million by renovating a leased school and closing Nielsen Elementary, home to Crowfoot's second-grader.
According to Crowfoot's analysis, though, the district had undercharged developers' fees, overlooked an annual insurance saving from the leased school and artificially inflated the cost of renovating Nielsen Elementary. He presented his findings to the board - and got his way. The district voted to renovate both schools.
Vocal parents' groups - demanding to know how money is spent, and why - are springing up outside the cozy confines of traditional PTAs, which more often play a booster role. But the new activism can rile school officials.
In Florida's Palm Beach County School District, trustees were openly miffed by a local man's offer of financial and management advice. Gary Young, head of the Palm Beach Economic Council and grandfather of a child in public school, said the group wanted to help the district save money. Trustee Gail Bjork saw it differently, saying, ``They wanted to take away our authority.''
A parents' group in San Jose Unified School District also has stirred tensions. Community Alliance for a Responsible Educational System was formed in 1994 to protect child-care programs from funding cuts. Now it weighs in on everything from the budget to asset management, ruffling feathers along the way.
Karen Fuqua, a longtime PTA mother who sits on a district budget committee with two CARES members, said she finds the group ``somewhat antagonistic.''
``I really don't know where their official recognition as a San Jose Unified group comes from,'' Fuqua said. ``It kind of stymies me.''
Her reservations about CARES echo the PTA leadership's ambivalence toward assertive tactics. Although the California chapter's new manual recommends EdSource's budget pamphlet, it tells PTAs ``never'' to suggest specific spending cuts or reductions, saying members rarely have enough financial information or expertise.
Other observers worry that professional parents' growing aggression could interfere with administrators' ability to do their jobs, and increase inequities between poor and affluent students.
``People with the power to be heard don't necessarily represent the needs of less powerful parents,'' said Amy Stuart Wells, an education professor at University of California, Los Angeles. ``Some of these parents in private industry who work as accountants, or whatever, think they know more than the educators.''
LENGTH: Long : 114 linesby CNB