from Mr. Person: parent involvement and the law

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your view), the parent involvement requirement of NCLB applies only to Title I schools--those schools serving a certain percentage of low-income/minority students (based on census data [10 year? 2 year? I don't know]).

A school can be Title I ELIGIBLE and still not accept Title I funding, which of course exempts it from the requirements.

Of those Title I-eligible schools that accept federal funding in excess of $500,000, no less than 1% (at least $5,000) MUST be spent on parent involvement programs that encourage "the participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful communication involving student academic learning."

Those schools that accept less than $500,000 STILL must spend money on parent involvement and STILL must do so in a way that satisfies the statutory definition of parent involvement, but the percentage that they must spend is not specified (though, presumably, it can't be zero).

From my meeting at the AAP (Association of American Publishers), I learned that the federal government has begun auditing schools with regard to parent involvement requirements.

I have to think that either they're taking the money and spending it on new electronic scoreboards for their basketball courts, or they are spending it on "parent breakfasts" and the like--activities that have more to do with building a rapport with parents (to say it nicely) than they do with addressing the "parent-student vertices of the achievement triangle" (to say it weirdly).

Make no mistake about NCLB's parent involvement requirements, though: (1) They place the ultimate burden of providing for parent involvement entirely on the schools, (2) they require that parent involvement be focused on improving achievement (i.e., anti-cupcake), and (3) parents must be allowed to be decision-makers in that process.

Very interesting - thanks so much for posting.

I should mention, because this is something most of the public seems not to know, that Mr. Person is right: NCLB applies only to Title I schools - and then only to Title I schools accepting Title I funding from the federal government.

At the same time, I've found (I think) that NCLB requirements do put a bit of "moral pressure" on non-Title I schools..... or so it seems to me. I could be wrong.

When you're trying to figure out what the law requires your school to do, you need to look at state law. My school, which is not a Title 1 school, does annual NCLB testing because New York state requires us to do so, not because NCLB requires it.


parent-student vertices of the achievement triangle

That's a good one.