House Bill 350 – Parental Encouragement?
Mar 26th, 2010 by Angel
Legislation was introduced Thursday, March 25, 2010, to involve parents more in their children’s education. The “Parents’ Declaration of Responsibilities”, which would affect all public and charter schools in the state, seems like an unnecessary adoption of common sense. Parents would be asked to sign the declaration at the beginning of each school year stating that they would commit to spending 15 minutes each evening helping their children with their homework or resolve to volunteer to help with school functions throughout the school year. Local parent/teacher organizations would help draft the declaration. There would be no penalty for noncompliance and no forcing of either parent to sign the declaration. Why then would the state ask for such legislation to be passed?
Delaware currently has no laws which require schools to inform the public of parental involvement. When deciding which school to send their children to parents have no information regarding how much community involvement to expect. House Bill 350 would require schools to publish the percentage of parents which signed the “Parents’ Declaration of Responsibilities” as well as how funds are being used to enhance parent involvement.
It seems activity in this bill would be mainly up to parents to enforce. With a lack of reinforcement from parents in the value of education, almost 2,000 students dropped out of high school in the 2008-2009 school year. This bill seems to be a manifestation of the desperate need for emphasis of education in the state of Delaware.
In its current form, House Bill 350 does not penalize parents for noncompliance (although one may think a child’s failing grades would be penalty enough) and seems not to have many negative aspects to it. One does wonder if it is the states place to ask parents to raise their children a certain way. Is it possible, in the future, for this seemingly innocuous bill to morph into a strictly enforced guide for parents regarding the raising of their children? Education is, no questions asked, extremely important. This should be emphasized in every home but it remains the parent’s choice, not that of the state. The state does have the right to encourage parents to get involved with their children’s schooling, but not to order them to do so. The bill, in its entirety, may be read here.
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Great article Angel. I forwarded this bill to the 9-12 Delaware Patriots Education Committee last night and they are taking a look at it.
Even though in its current form there is no enforcement mechanism in place I don’t like the idea of making it mandatory for parents to sign an involvement contract. Incrementalism is a sneaky thing. Your suspicion could easily prove correct that while there is no enforcement now it could happen down the road.
If this bill does go through I hope that the parents of Delaware will give the schools more than they bargained for. If you have to sign a contract to be involved with your child’s education than get involved. If you see something that you don’t like let your kid’s school know about it. If you think something is missing from their education, then let the school know about it. If the state wants to mandate your involvement then you can exersize what freedom is left to you and exceed their expectations and intentions. Pretty soon they will be crying uncle. You might be hearing that they want your involvement, but only so much of it, and only in areas that they define. Thats okay we will keep helping out anyways, they need it.
Can you say “nanny state”?
LOL… right.
If you want more parent involvement, make the system more parent-friendly. None of this hand-waving about “contracts” – you have to change the process.
And it is going to cost some money:
1. Implement better web-based portals for home tracking of grades and assignments and communicating with teachers. My district has this but it could be improved.
2. Require the school portal to provide optional email-based reminders for key school events like due dates, extracurricular events, meetings, end of marking period, etc. Nobody does anything without a reminder anymore. We are all too busy. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way it is.
3. Require all worksheets and materials to be downloadable where practical.
4. Give teachers additional time to field parent emails and phone messages.
5. Designate an on-call teacher in the evenings for homework help, with the ability to clear up any misunderstood work instructions for all classes, and electronically send any missing papers.
OK, just scratched the surface here, lots more in that vein.
It appears that for the State to receive Title 1 federal funds, they must prove that the parents are involved in their children’s education.
. . . Targeted assistance schools design, in consultation with parents, staff, and district staff, an instructional program to meet the needs of those students. Both schoolwide and targeted assistance programs must use instructional strategies based on scientifically based research and implement parental involvement activities. . . .
But this bill is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of . . . a slippery slope. I will be calling my legislator about this one.
This is a waste of time. The parents who are responsible don’t need this type of “encouragement”. Those who are the problem won’t comply. If one wants to legislate good parenting and the penalties for failing to do so, I’m willing to listen.
“If one wants to legislate good parenting and the penalties for failing to do so, I’m willing to listen.” T.W. I hope you were kidding. Instead of forcing parent to be involved, which I don’t believe you can, why not just take children at birht? And indoctrinate them to be good little socialist the easy way, through mind control. This is nothing more then “HEADLINE LEGISLATION”, in an election year. But I do agree that it has some nasty potential for abuse in the future.
I think Anon is more on track.
I brisol at the notion that we are responsible to government and not the other way around.
If you need a law to entice you into spending time on your children’s learning, you shouldn’t be breeding. When they’re young, you can give them a head start; when they’re older, you can give them alternative explanations to the politically-correct, historically-revisionistic and propagandistic pablum they’re spoon-fed all day in state schools.
Our State Schools; “Custer was Hitler!