By John Simmons / guest columnist
October 09, 2007 12:41 am
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While the public schools face many kinds of problems, lack of parent involvement is perceived to be chief among them. A new poll was conducted and asked whether a series of possible problems affected schools in the local community.
The single most cited problem is a lack of parental involvement; this is more common to the public eye than a host of other concerns including poor quality teachers and student drug use. Second up is over crowded classrooms. A Commonwealth Education Poll was conducted April 17-24 with 814 adults in their own state. The margin of error is plus or minus four percent.
Fifty six percent of the state felt that lack of parent involvement is a major problem for local schools and nearly three in 10 (27 percent) feel this is a minor problem. Parents, themselves, are nearly as willing to fault a lack of parent involvement. Nearly half (47 percent) of public school parents say that lack of parent involvement is a major problem for schools in their community.
Households with school employees are also concerned about this; 61 percent of this group consider lack of parental involvement to be a major problem for schools.
There are other problems facing the schools, too. Overcrowded classrooms are frequently seen as a problem. Fifty one percent cite classroom size as a major problem for local schools and another three in 10 say it is a minor problem. For public school parents, overcrowded classrooms nose out other concerns as the most frequently cited problem. Fifty three percent of public school parents say overcrowded classrooms are a major problem for local schools and another almost three in 10 (29 percent) say this is a minor problem.
What’s remarkable here is that most people aren’t so concerned about the obvious players in the schools such as teachers and students. Instead, most people are concerned about the missing player-parents, said the director of the Commonwealth Poll.
Character Education Important
A lack of parent involvement may be part of the problem but schools are often seen as part of the solution to shoring up the character and values of developing citizens. There is widespread agreement among our teaching character and values is an important mission for the schools in addition to teaching more academic subjects. More than seven in 10 (72 percent) said this was very important and 22 percent thought it somewhat important. Mississippians of all backgrounds and political persuasions endorse the idea that schools teach character and values.
While nearly everyone agrees that parents need a primary role in teaching character and values more than four in 10 think responsibility for teaching character and values should be shared between parents and schools. 46 percent of Mississippians feel parents and schools should have an equal responsibility and 53 percent feel only parents should have primary responsibility in this regard. It’s surprising to see so many people viewing character education as within the purview of schools. This has not usually been considered a primary responsibility of the schools.
The public may be looking for more help from the schools to take on character education as the gravity of problems facing young people in society has risen.
There has always been a direct relationship between parent involvement and student performance. If we spend more time with our investments, we generally get a better return. Why shouldn’t this be true of our children?
John Simmons is president of Community Education Support Foundation, Inc. of Meridian.
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