THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411230028
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 58 lines
Judging by some recommendations of the Commission on Champion Schools, Virginia parents long to be more involved in their children's education. If only that were so.
Experience suggests most parents have little inkling of what their kids are being taught or what takes place from the time they board the school bus in the morning to the time they're delivered back home.
If there's doubt, just ask the PTA president what percentage of parents is involved in school activities or even attends PTA meetings; ask any teacher how many parents showed up for the last parent-teacher conference. Ask them, too, if most visitors weren't parents of achievers, not parents needed to help their children pass. Ask yourself when you last stepped foot in your child's school or monitored homework.
The answers may indicate why giving parents more control over what children are taught and where they learn it - which are among commission goals - are at least partially wishful thinking. Gov. George Allen, state School Superintendent William C. Bosher Jr. and the minority of parents who are involved in their children's education and/or dissatisfied with public schools in general may yearn for it, but that's far from consensus.
The result could easily be the vision of a minority of Allen-appointed conservatives, more in line with their social views than the educational mission of schools.
For example, the commission believes family-life education, which includes sex education, should require parental permission for students to ``opt in.'' Now, students are automatically included unless they ``opt out.''
If most parents shared the commission's view, they presumably would be exempting their children in great numbers. They aren't. Meanwhile, Virginia schoolchildren get abstinence-boosting information from trained, specially picked teachers.
Adopting the ``opt-in'' recommendation would multiply paperwork in school systems already overburdened with it.
The commission's recommendation for charter schools is more in line with its mission of reforming schools. Such schools experiment with curriculum and methods, largely free of state and local regulations. They have been successful in other states, bringing up academic standards in all schools.
That supports the notion that public schools - along with all other public-service agencies - need competition. Something must be done to lower the dropout rate and poor achievement level of many public-school students, and charter schools are a promising remedy.
Recommendations of the Commission on Champion Schools and the education committee of the governor's Blue Ribbon Strike Force are expected to shape Governor Allen's legislative agenda for education, to be presented to the General Assembly in January.
In the interim, both groups should further explore just how much involvement is demanded by most parents. There's a world of difference between legislating parental involvement and getting it. by CNB