PARENT EMPOWERMENT: KEY TO CHANGING EDUCATION SYSTEMS
But, we have also discovered that the “supply” of these educational innovations cannot reach its full potential without creating “actionable demand” to remove the political and policy barriers that prevent education systems from embracing these innovations broadly.
We deliberately use the term “actionable demand” because widespread “latent demand” exists for great schools in all communities.
All communities care equally about the education and future of their children.
But caring is not the same as power.
Most parents in underperforming school systems do not possess the economic power to move to better school systems, and too few know how to activate their personal power to influence change in their current school systems.
Many communities with failing schools lack even basic information to know that their schools ARE failing and understand what policies and politics are causing this failure.
Even moderately well-performing school systems too often miss an opportunity to engage parents as partners to fully unlock the potential for students they serve.
So to be direct, turning “latent demand” into “actionable demand” is about power: Informing and organizing parents so they can exercise their innate power – individually and collectively – to create and sustain change.
A growing number of organizations are committed to creating “actionable demand” by supporting parents to employ a diverse array of empowerment strategies.
However, as a field these organizations remain highly fragmented and sub-scale relative to what is needed to drive change across 14,000+ school districts in this country – both large and small districts, and across urban, suburban and rural communities.
The parent empowerment field also remains significantly underfunded. In the United States, we spend roughly $608 billion dollars annually on K-12 education, with just 0.3% from private philanthropy, and philanthropy invests only a small fraction of that 0.3% in parent empowerment work
While money alone does not solve problems, how it is deployed in schools, staffing, curriculum, services and programming makes all the difference between a high-performing education system and a failing one. Those who have power in school systems make decisions about that system, including allocation of resources. Right now, we underfund supporting parents to exercise their power to have a seat at the table where they can make decisions for their children, their school or their school system.
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