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The key to succesful education is involved parents. It's really that simple. Are you a parent yourself? (I am, of four children, two now adults.) Have you ever

The key to succesful education is involved parents. It's really that simple. Are you a parent yourself? (I am, of four children, two now adults.) Have you ever been a parent in more than one country? (I have both here in the United States and in Taiwan.) Do you regularly communicate with other parents about how well school programs are working for their children? (I participate in a national online network of parents of gifted children every day.) Parent involvement of a certain kind is necessary, but it is not sufficient (unless it takes the form of homeschooling, which is something I did for the primary education of all four of my children). With equally involved and caring parents, pupils and students do better or worse depending especially on curriculum design, and depending also on teacher training and school administration. Studies of school districts that had forced changes of administrators of schools under the now-expired No Child Left Behind law showed that changing administrators in a school can improve learning outcomes for the same group of children brought up by the same group of parents. Moreover, teachers often increased their job satisfaction after such administrative changes.[1] Almost every thread about education on Hacker News has a top comment saying, "Parental involvement is the most important thing." I could agree with that statement (I largely do, as a homeschooling parent) without thinking that statement is any more than a middle-brow dismissal[2] of the submitted article's detailed text unless we have something to discuss here about a) what brings about more parental involvement and b) what else can be done at the margin to improve schools for parents who are already well involved. Let's discuss those issues here rather than be dismissive. AFTER EDIT: I have my own top-level in this thread with substantive response to what the original article author said, but it is pushed far down below the fold by the long subthread development here. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/27/443110755/no-child-left-behind-what-worked-what-didnt http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/10/27/443110755/no-child... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4692598#up_4693920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4692598#up_4693920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10103985#up_10106466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10103985#up_10106466

ThomPete 11y ago
I am a parent of two boys. I am originally from Denmark but moved to the US with my family. My wife is part of the PTA group. My oldest is in Success Academy a charter school. I am not saying it's sufficient not sure how you got that idea. I am saying it's what makes the difference for the children getting education is that their parents are involved. You can't always decide what teachers your kids are getting or what school they go to, who they hang out with and so on. But you can decide if you are going to be involved in your kids education.
- tokenadult 11y ago
  I am not saying it's sufficient not sure how you got that idea. You were the one who wrote, in the higher-level comment you made, The key to succesful education is involved parents. It's really that simple. Now that we have agreement here expressed by each of us that parent involvement is important, but not the whole story of what's important in education, how about let's discuss the specific content of the article submitted for discussion? How could an involved parent, for example, CHECK whether or not a teacher in the friendly local public school has learned enough about reading instruction to know how to distinguish phonemes from graphemes? I'd be happy to see other readers's comments on my own top-level comment in this thread (it is "below the fold, I think), in which I give examples of differing practice in the other country I have lived in, Taiwan. The schools there did an amazing job when Taiwan was still a developing country of providing good instruction with very limited resources. One big aspect of that was better teacher training.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    Maybe I could have been more elaborate in my comment. Fair enough. The article claims that it's not bad teachers but bad teacher education. I am following that line of singular reason and saying what I believe comes before that. I made that comment in the context of discussions about childrens education which always focus on a bunch of other things than parents. (Better equipment, better teachers, better methods etc.) because I believe thats one of the most if not the most important reasons to get good education to the extent that something has to be chosen. I am not buying the premise that education somehow becomes better if teachers becomes better or children gets better scores. Because I am not buying the premise that education in itself is the goal. It's only part of a much bigger perspective far beyond the reach of the educational system and later in life far beyond parents control. So I stand by my claim that involved parents will itself make up for a lot of the things that are considered problems with education.
- numann 11y ago
  "The key to succesful education is involved parents. It's really that simple." Given that statement, and translating it from layman terms ("the key" and "really that simple") into philosophical terms (necessary and sufficient), I would say that tokenadult was fair in having that idea, that "the key" == "sufficient".

ThomPete 11y ago

I am a parent of two boys. I am originally from Denmark but moved to the US with my family. My wife is part of the PTA group. My oldest is in Success Academy a charter school. I am not saying it's sufficient not sure how you got that idea. I am saying it's what makes the difference for the children getting education is that their parents are involved. You can't always decide what teachers your kids are getting or what school they go to, who they hang out with and so on. But you can decide if you are going to be involved in your kids education.

tokenadult 11y ago
I am not saying it's sufficient not sure how you got that idea. You were the one who wrote, in the higher-level comment you made, The key to succesful education is involved parents. It's really that simple. Now that we have agreement here expressed by each of us that parent involvement is important, but not the whole story of what's important in education, how about let's discuss the specific content of the article submitted for discussion? How could an involved parent, for example, CHECK whether or not a teacher in the friendly local public school has learned enough about reading instruction to know how to distinguish phonemes from graphemes? I'd be happy to see other readers's comments on my own top-level comment in this thread (it is "below the fold, I think), in which I give examples of differing practice in the other country I have lived in, Taiwan. The schools there did an amazing job when Taiwan was still a developing country of providing good instruction with very limited resources. One big aspect of that was better teacher training.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  Maybe I could have been more elaborate in my comment. Fair enough. The article claims that it's not bad teachers but bad teacher education. I am following that line of singular reason and saying what I believe comes before that. I made that comment in the context of discussions about childrens education which always focus on a bunch of other things than parents. (Better equipment, better teachers, better methods etc.) because I believe thats one of the most if not the most important reasons to get good education to the extent that something has to be chosen. I am not buying the premise that education somehow becomes better if teachers becomes better or children gets better scores. Because I am not buying the premise that education in itself is the goal. It's only part of a much bigger perspective far beyond the reach of the educational system and later in life far beyond parents control. So I stand by my claim that involved parents will itself make up for a lot of the things that are considered problems with education.
numann 11y ago
"The key to succesful education is involved parents. It's really that simple." Given that statement, and translating it from layman terms ("the key" and "really that simple") into philosophical terms (necessary and sufficient), I would say that tokenadult was fair in having that idea, that "the key" == "sufficient".