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Monday, June 20, 2011

We Want and Need Parents at the Table - Arlington, VA, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post

We Want and Need Parents at the Table - Arlington, VA, United States, ASCD EDge Blog post

We Want and Need Parents at the Table

Walter’s blog archive: http://surfaquarium.com/blog.htm

Mirror site: http://surfaquarium.blogspot.com/2011/06/we-want-and-need-parents-at-table.html

OK so you’ve got all the stakeholders at the table: the students, teachers, administrators, unions, lawmakers, state and federal education agencies, professional education associations, teacher preparation programs, education technology experts, visionary gurus….even the deep-pocketed philanthropists who want their say. Let’s throw a few more tables together...it’s getting crowded...and more chairs….we need elbow room...

But wait, there’s still something or someone missing. You would think with this many interests represented at the table we’d have it covered. Let’s see...we have everyone with a self-interest in seeing education move forward...no wait….no we don’t. There are no parents at the table.

What do you MEAN parents have no place at the table? What do you MEAN they are glad just to have childcare covered all day? What do you MEAN they have abrogated most of their child-rearing responsibilities and left you to pick them up piecemeal behind them? In an age of