Educating Teachers: The ABCs of Parental Involvement

National PTA President Ginny Markell and her organization promote programs that train teachers to forge more productive parent-teacher relationships

Credit: National PTA

"Until we're willing to spend the time and do the training to prepare teachers to work with parents, parental involvement for many will continue to mean someone who comes to school to run the Xerox machine."

Ginny Markell understands the importance of meaningful parent involvement in our schools.

As the National PTA [1] president, Markell has crisscrossed the country touting the benefits of an active, engaged community of parents. And as a high school teacher, she has experienced firsthand the difficulties of connecting with all her students' families and helping them become leaders in her class and in the school.

"Just because you're a great classroom teacher doesn't mean you feel comfortable working with parents," says Markell. "That's the great fallacy of the system."

Rather than assuming teachers will intuitively know how to facilitate a partnership with parents, the National PTA has been working with the American Association for Colleges of Teacher Education [2] (AACTE) to add curriculum for aspiring teachers that includes a discussion of strategies for facilitating parental involvement [3]. To date, seven states have participated in the pilot project: Alabama, Alaska, California, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.

Through its support of The PARENT Act, the National PTA is also lobbying to have parent involvement included as a necessary component of all staff development activities funded through the Eisenhower Professional Development Program for current teachers.