This is a position paper on community and family involvement in education. The paper first presents the problem area for which a position is taken; this is followed by a brief review of the literature. Second, the paper delineates the position taken and presents a logical argument in support of this position. Premises central to this argument are stated as well as the conclusion to which the premises lead.
Section I: Statement of the Problem and Review of the Literature
Clint (1990) reports that a considerable segment of American society is extremely dissatisfied with the modern educational system. Indeed, the dissatisfaction is sufficiently strong that over one million parents have chosen to home school and millions more have elected to pull their children out of the public schools and put them in private schools (Schmidt, 1989).
Several reasons have been offered to explain this dissatisfaction. In this regard, U.S. News & World Report (December 9, 1991) states:
A steady stream of reports from the nation's classrooms about drugs, violence, bureaucratic bloat and ill-educated students is eroding public confidence in the American tradition of common schooling. . .(p.66)
Also, Marshner (1984) has listed several reasons parents are sufficiently disillusioned with public education so as to consider private school or home school. These include: (1) failure of the school to support parental rights in schooling and the elimination of majority control of school policy; (2) the lack of classroom discipline; (3) the need for teacher training reform; (4) the politicalization of the classroom by means of the curriculum and by teachers; (5) the need to revitalize citizenship education; and (6) perception of the school as teaching values contrary to religious beliefs.
The loss of these families from the public educational system means not only a loss of monies from state and federal funding sources, it also entails a loss of ...