Americans may agree on few truisms today, but I would bet any ranch I owned on this fact: As a rule, parents want to see their children succeed in school.
That’s why organizations like the National Parents Union exist to train and develop parents as advocates for quality schools and effective instruction. That’s why experts at Reading Rockets and elsewhere emphasize how parents build vocabulary in their young ones by reading to them early and often. And that’s why the state of Texas long ago created opportunities for parents to serve on site-based decision-making committees at their children’s schools. My wife and I both were on such committees at our kids’ schools, where we not only considered operational issues but also achievement data.
