The Parent Trap

If political participation is power, then San Diego County parents are virtually toothless in determining what goes on in their children’s classrooms. Despite what you might have read in recent years about specific political issues galvanizing parents to act against various schools and school boards, many education observers say that, overall, parents here aren’t as involved in school politics as they could or should be.

“l don’t think parents in San Diego have a lot of power in the school systems,” says Ron Ottinger, board president of the San Diego Unified School District. “Perhaps in school board elections to some extent, but, by and large, we’ve seen—with the exception of a few schools—that you have a very small band of very involved parents who have perhaps a disproportionate say in what goes on. Parents just don’t have a lot of say.”

If this is true, it reflects a national trend. A recent U.S. Department of Education report says only a small percentage of the electorate—10 to 15 percent, on average, across the nation—votes in school board elections, and that candidates are in short supply in some areas.

The result of this indifference, nationally and locally, is that school districts and teachers are left to decide what and how to teach. And in this age of latchkey kids and two-income or single-parent households, schools become, by default, institutions of last resort, where kids learn everything from morals to manners—stuff that historically has been left to parents, families and churches to teach and preach.

“Society has changed greatly, and so have our schools,” says Reverend Bob Feldman, retired from La Jolla Methodist Church. Feldman, whose children were in city schools in the 1960s (and whose grandkids are in schools here now), says, “A lot more is expected of teachers now. Every child seems to be on different ground, and sometimes the kids just aren’t getting the support at home. I’m obviously in favor of more family participation, but how can you control what parents do? Unfortunately, some parents these days just aren’t telling their kids, ‘Hey, Junior, your future’s riding on this. Get to work.’”

Some observers blame the lack of parental involvement in schools for such societal ills as higher dropout rates, low test scores, teen gangs, even school shootings. Ted Crooks, former president of the Grossmont Union High School District—which includes Santana and Granite Hills High Schools, where tragic shootings occurred in 2001—says parental participation in school politics in East County after the incidents was actually less than it was before the shootings.

“A lot of parents were agitated for a few weeks and months after the shootings, but this did not cause any substantial, long-term change in parental involvement,” says Crooks. “The vast majority of parents in this district are still not involved in school politics. Surprisingly, only one out of 12 registered voters in our district voted in the last school board election.”

Crooks, who sat on the Grossmont board for four years before losing his bid for reelection last November, cites a number of reasons for this apathy. “Most parents don’t make the connect between elections and what happens in their kids’ classrooms,” he says. “And they think politics is a dirty business. Then there’s the fact that people are so busy these days.

“It’s interesting that the parents who are involved in such things as PTA and sports and clubs in their kids’ schools are not the same parents who are involved in school politics. Parents just don’t realize that a handful of people, even if they’re total idiots, can gain all the power over their kids’ schools simply because they show up at boring meetings.”

According to Linda Mayo, vice president of communications for the California State PTA, parent enrollment in PTA both locally and statewide has “declined slightly” in the past year. She cites a number of possible factors, including the post–September 11 economy and the fact that the national PTA raised membership dues last year.

“Enrollment among parents is still over 1 million in California,” says Mayo. “Considering the national PTA enrollment is around 6 million, that is still a large number and shows substantial parental involvement.”

Karen Burger, corresponding secretary with the San Diego Unified Council of PTAs, says membership numbers for San Diego Unified and Imperial County PTAs (by school year) went from 21,942 in 1999-2000 to 10,317 the next year, back up to 18,470 in 2001-2002 and stands at 11,612 for 2002-2003.

Burger says parental involvement in San Diego area PTAs fluctuates from year to year for a variety of reasons. “School boards change; that’s one significant factor,” she says. “The economy is a big factor, as well. And then there is just general laziness and the fact that some schools are simply better at membership drives than others. We have some schools that are members of the PTA Council who haven’t even picked up their membership cards, which tells you that they are probably not actively recruiting new members.”

But there are positive signs that things are changing. A combination of factors, not the least of which is some clear dissatisfaction with San Diego city schools’ superintendent Alan Bersin’s controversial Blueprint for Student Success, has led to a quantifiable increase in parental involvement here, especially at the K-6 level.

Mike McCarthy, a local publisher, activist and parent—and one of Bersin’s harshest critics—insists the problem isn’t apathy among local parents but a feeling of futility. He believes San Diego Unified School District leaders are not sincerely interested in what parents think or want.

“Parents are angry and frustrated right now. The Blueprint is not friendly to parents, especially parents of children in the inner city,” says McCarthy. A year ago he formed Voters for Truth in Education, whose main goal is to change the policies of a district he insists does not cater to the real-life needs of its students.

“The pattern of this administration has been to lie or misinform or just tell parents to shut up,” McCarthy says. “Only when they boycott or file lawsuits do they get the district’s attention.”

One glaring recent example of parental involvement in school politics occurred in December at the Johnson Magnet School for Space Exploration & Technology in Emerald Hills, where parents and community activists organized a boycott to protest a lack of textbooks, credentialed teachers and communication with parents. More than 160 children boycotted the school for two days.

Leading up to the boycott, parents complained that, among other things, boxes of new textbooks had been sitting unused for weeks in the auditorium because teachers were not trained to use them. They complained about falling test scores and loss of the school’s program for gifted students. They said kids, especially in the higher grades at the school, were being taught almost exclusively by substitute teachers.

Parents also said the district was slow in implementing after-hours programs for students who were having a hard time with math and reading. And they did not like the fact that the school district has chosen to eliminate phonetics-based reading methods. As a result of the boycott, a task force was set up by the district to address the complaints.

“The surveys and the district spokespeople may say something else, but don’t tell me San Diego parents aren’t involved in their kids’ schools,” says McCarthy. “There were more than 160 kids kept out of that school during that boycott. If that isn’t parental involvement in schools, I don’t know what is.”

But Crooks suggests that even boycotts don’t indicate a long-term commitment by parents.

“Boycotts reflect parental involvement at that moment,” says Crooks, “but the question is: How many of these parents are still active after their kids go back to school? The biggest problem is that parents only get involved when there’s a crisis, then the vast majority of them return to their normal lives. The big decisions are then left to the small number of folks who show up at all those boring meetings.”

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