Political Quotes

“The belief there is that we ought to provide the resources to do it. Another example, a school I am aware of a number of years ago had very little parent involvement and low test scores, which indicates that, and a lot of other problems, discipline problems. The principal said, listen, I'm not going to put up with this. It was an area where you would say the school cannot be successful, with a lot of problems in the community, lack of involvement, et cetera. This principal decided, I am going to get them involved. She went to every house and knocked on every door, went to softball games, baseball games during the summer; wherever parents were, this principal went. It was a long story. Parental involvement, the PTA went from something like 10 percent to 80 percent. School scores went up dramatically; dropout rates went down. That is what we are trying to get to, is to be able to provide a resource. All this school needed was one person. One parent came and volunteered.”