Reflection 2

Jennifer Whitten
Schools and Communities in Partnership
Many schools today do not have the support from their community and it shows. Many schools who have support from the community have higher rates for success and many more parents who come in and volunteer. Their are different way that the community can get involved such as arranging PTA's, IAF, and help promote learning. Those states that do not have ht e community help are the ones who struggle the most and are expected to also obtain high test scores. A community can also be considered a parent, government, basically anyone who helps in the classroom out of the goodness of their hearts. I know for many people this is really hard to do because both parents re working to make a living but I know that my mom would work in my classrooms teaching children to speak english. I went out with some of my friends and met one of the girls my mom and helped and she remembered and asked me about her. That made me proud to call her my mom because she changed someones life including my own.
Many communities have different ways for helping and others feel that it is not their job to help the education. The community feels that it is the teachers job to take care of the students and to a;so keep the test scores up. Oakes states "Today, low-income communities increasingly seek to hold schools accountable for providing high-quality education to their children"(408). This showed that in some cases teachers did not have a chance unless they were taking money from their pocket to provide a proper eduction. Many cities are going through these problems today and it wont change until they get the help from the parents and communities. Many of these schools can be located in low income areas were they feel the students don't take their education seriously. That still is not an excuse if the government knows this is going on they should help their currant students. They are the students who will be running the government when they retire; wouldn't they want to make sure they are being replaced by a well educated being.
Many communitees suport the education by haveing groups such as the PTA. My mom was also part of the PTA while I was in elementry school and helped promote bake sales or back to school nights. I remember they would have different classrooms donate different treats and they would try to raise money to buy new books, ect. According to Oakes "Today, the national PTA continues to take progressive stands on many of these issues and tries to have its membership reflect the charging demographics of the country"(407). Many schools through out the country have PTA but their are some that don't and that need them more than ever. If parents are unable to help out at the school then maybe they should take seniors from the local high school to do communitee service. If all schools had PTA's then they would have an additional sourse of income that could make the biggest difference for some schools.
Anouther orginization that is occuring in the educaton system is the IFA. The IFA is an orginization that takes in polls to see what others think should be changed or what might need help. According to Oakes "They identify area of overlapping self-intrest with other parents and, if possible, with educators at a school"(410). I feel this is very important because schools can set goals for next year on things they want to change and try to accomplish those goals. This could help the students be more encuraged to learn or could even chalenge those who havent been challenged due to old text books,
Their are many different ways that the community could get involved in education. Some just need to be informed and others just need a little encouragement. Once parents get involved the better because I feel the students of those parents always seemed to have help t home too for homework. This was due to the parents knowing what their was for homework and would mke sure it was done. If communities continue to make PTA and IAF commities for schools then they will be promoting knowlege.