Episode 97: Amplifying Voices in Education — The Journey of Parent Advocacy for Equity in K-12 Learning

As a mother, I've felt the sting of micro-discriminations in my children's education journey, and this struggle has fueled my resolve to empower other parents. Join me as I share my insight into the transformative power of parent advocacy in K-12 education.  I delve into the nuances of ensuring educational justice for our children, particularly in the challenging realm of STEM subjects. Provided is a roadmap for parents to not only participate but to lead the charge in creating inclusive and equitable school environments for all students.  My conversation covers the unique barriers African-American families encounter and the critical importance of community support.

This episode is a treasure trove of strategies for parents eager to champion their children's education. From the misunderstood engagement of Latino families to the establishment of charter schools and enhancing school services, I explore the breadth of parental influence. I also introduce an innovative tool supporting parents of deaf and hard of hearing children, highlighting the impact of advocacy on the individualized education process. The takeaways are clear: observation, communication, and persistence are the pillars of effecting positive change. Parents, ready yourselves to take a stand and ensure your child receives the quality education they deserve.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:39

Welcome to another episode of K-12 Education Untangled. My name is Dr Kim J Fields, former corporate manager turned education researcher and advocate, and I'm the host of this podcast. I got into this space after dealing with some frustrating interactions with school educators and administrators, as well as experiencing the micro-discriminations that I faced as an African-American mom raising my two kids, who were in the public school system. I really wanted to understand how teachers were trained and what the research provided about the challenges of the public education system. Once I gained the information and the insights that I needed, I was then equipped to be able to successfully support my children in their educational progress. This podcast is at the intersection between education, research and parental actions. If you're looking to find out more about the current trends, issues and themes in education that could affect you or your children, and you want to know the specific actions you can take to support and advocate for your children, then you're in the right place. Thanks for tuning in today. I know that staying informed about K-12 education topics is important to you, so keep listening. On today's episode, I'll be discussing the role of parent advocates in education and how to work with other parents to affect changes in schools. As parents, you want the best educational experiences for your children. That's why advocating for your children as they progress through the public education system is vital. Progress through the public education system is vital. You need to support them and speak up for them in various types of situations, including playground incidents, inappropriate teacher-student interactions, structural inequities, systemic racist policies and curriculum censorship, to name a few. Advocacy is more than just parent participation. It's about seeking social and educational justice for your children, as well as other children of color, in a system designed to reproduce social inequality. Let's untangle this inequality. Let's untangle this. Advocate is a Latin word that means to summon or call for aid. It's also defined as one who defends or pleads the cause of another. Advocacy is about summoning support and calling in resources to address a child's particular needs.

Speaker 1: 3:33

All children benefit from parents who are their advocates, from children who are in traditional public schools to those with intellectual, physical or developmental disabilities, and to those who are in advanced academic courses. Attendance at teacher conferences and school meetings does not constitute advocacy. One of the reasons that parents may be reluctant to become advocates is that they believe they don't know as much as the professionals do. In this case, parents seldom speak up in meetings and rarely question educators' decisions and rarely question educators' decisions. Another reason for reluctance to become advocates is that parents are unsure about how to navigate the process of addressing their child's specific concerns. As parents, you're naturally concerned about your children's performance and you want to know how they are doing or whether it would be advantageous to change certain aspects of their educational experience.

Speaker 1: 4:37

To support and foster advocacy from parents, the following steps may be useful for educators to consider Maintain open lines of communication, whether through face-to-face communication, phone or email. Value parental input and insights because they know their child. Empower parents by sharing information and resources that support parents in their own search for information and ways to advocate. Remain professional and unbiased. It's important for the teacher and school administrators to respect the different backgrounds, cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds and language exposures of the families in their community. Seeking to understand these families goes over a long way toward building mutual trust. Over a long way toward building mutual trust.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Educators need to recognize parent advocates for what they do and their input needs to be valued because they have a key role in determining their child's educational progress. The school community needs to be inclusive, making sure that they reach out to disconnected and or alienated and underserved families who may want to become advocates for their children. The key parts of advocacy include self-reliance, direct communication and individualism. Parent-to-parent advice is invaluable in helping parents learn to advocate for their children. The advantage is clear the more parents or others who are temporarily or permanently taking on parental roles advocate for their children and support their progress, the better the children do and the longer they stay in school. Some of the key qualities of being a parent advocate include an awareness of how the educational system works, a willingness to work with school personnel to resolve issues or plan for your child's future, motivation to steer your child to higher level of classes and programs. Knowing how to get information or help if needed. And to speak out for your own child and other families and students if problems develop. Learning to advocate is an ongoing process and enlisting the assistance from others can prove to be beneficial In the advocacy journey. You need accurate information and support.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Sometimes Black parents need to be advocates when their students are in STEM courses STEM courses. This often occurs because for Black STEM students, the road to college and career success is often difficult, and it includes racialized educational settings where academic and social ideologies typically advantage white students. These psychologically challenging conditions often contribute to chronically adverse experiences and outcomes for children of color. Yet some Black students do succeed in spite of this environment. One of the often overlooked paths to STEM achievement for African American students is the unyielding and multidimensional sources of support that they receive from their parents and family members. Of support that they receive from their parents and family members. Although middle class African American parents are equipped with cultural capital that's valued most by the dominant society, these parents and their children may be still affected by racism, especially when they seek to advocate on behalf of their children. Economic mobility does not give African American parents the same protection as it does the white parents, and this keeps the relationship of African American parents in schools at odds with each other.

Speaker 1: 8:38

Mathematics education tends to hold a privileged and intellectual significance as a critical filter controlling entry into higher education as well as many higher paid occupations. Black parents who advocate for their children, especially in the realm of mathematics education, understand the importance of having strong math skills. Mathematics achievement and participation among high performing black students underscores the role of significant others in contributing to the achievement of these students. The specific motivators for their achievement include parental and family influence, community support and peer groups, as well as students' positive responses to these support structures. When African-American parents believed that differential treatment was given to their students based on their inability to participate in mathematics-related contexts, these parents were prepared to battle for their children's mathematics education. In fact, african-american parents helped their children learn, participate and succeed in math in their early years of schooling. More so, many of the early mathematics learning experiences came from the child's father or a close male relative, like an uncle or grandfather. I know this to be true in my case because my father was my first mathematics teacher, and this continued into high school. It was also helpful that he was, and this continued into high school. It was also helpful that he was a mathematician in his career field. This is confirmed in the research, which indicates that mathematically talented African-American students indicated parental or guardian motivation as key in their development of mathematics literacy, and they also cited that their parents strongly encouraged mathematics excellence in their households.

Speaker 1: 10:34

Advocating for their children's achievement in math led these parents to provide math education at home, as well as ensuring that they were placed in STEM courses in school. In this particular study, the parents' role of advocacy included fostering self-efficacy, serving as mentors and being their children's first teachers, in addition to instilling emotional perseverance, providing reassurance and being an ongoing source of inspiration, the parents stressed the importance of doing excellent scholastic work, striving for the best and pushing their children to succeed. These parents were able to provide educational opportunities for their children despite barriers and weakened connections between the parents and the schools. The parents showed commitment and resilience in their fight for the education of their children. The advocacy for their children included moving into neighborhoods or commuting to schools that had advanced placement and college courses so they could secure STEM opportunities in school and out of school for their children. Teaching from the parents also provided insight on cultural norms, such as quote-unquote code switching when talking to school administrators and teachers, which is a value that the dominant society characterizes as being held by academically successful students. Advocacy in this study did not include collaborations between teachers and school staff, neither did it involve a teacher-parent partnership. What these parents were able to achieve was to teach their children how to advocate for themselves and eventually self-navigate through a racialized public education system.

Speaker 1: 12:27

Parents who initially start out advocating for their own children end up having a big impact on the entire school community. Some examples of parent advocacy in action include a pair of mothers who started a charter school because they wanted their children to experience the outdoors at school. Their children to experience the outdoors at school. When an African American mother was concerned for her daughter's safety, she advocated for expanded bus service in East St Louis, illinois. When the parents of American Indian students in Minnesota worked to assure a high level of cultural sensitivity and accuracy about what was being taught in the classroom. One mother who, after learning that her children's school had dropped recess, decided this was unacceptable and she began working with other parents to bring back recess. It took them three years and several hours of advocating at the state and local level, but she was successful. Or when a Latino mother decided to do something about poor nutritional choices at her daughter's school in Colorado and, after working with the principal, began to make menu changes for higher quality food as well as better tasting food.

Speaker 1: 13:52

If you've ever experienced being in an individualized education program or IEP meeting, they can be very stressful. They can also be ineffective with little meaningful discussion. They can also be ineffective with little meaningful discussion. Sometimes an education advocate is necessary to bring to these types of meetings because they understand federal law and are familiar with IEP language. They are especially helpful in working with students with disabilities such as deafness or hard of hearing. These advocates work with parents in understanding the IEP process and help teachers as well as parents understand important issues. As they work with parents, the parents become advocates working on their child's behalf. To support this special group of students and parents, a new tool called the Parent Advocacy App was developed especially for deaf and hard of hearing children. It's available for free on Android and Apple devices.

Speaker 1: 15:04

Parental advocacy may be particularly important during pivotal developmental transitions, such as when children move from preschool to kindergarten. This transition is typically a family's first experience with particulars of formal schooling. Although many organizations and the federal government, through the no Child Left Behind Act, focused on more ways to involve all families in their children's education, parent advocacy and engagement among Latinos, who are the largest ethnic minority group in the United States, has often been widely misunderstood. The research on parental engagement and advocacy among Latino families is complex and evolving. The perception among teachers in many research studies is that Latino families are uninvolved and not invested in their children's education, but more recent research indicates that Latino parents strongly value education and have high expectations for their children. These studies legitimize the voices of Latino parents, capitalizing on their inherent strengths and the value of education and center them as key figures and advocates in their children's early school experiences. Advocating by the parents in a recent study was reflected in situations in which the parents alerted teachers about certain social situations regarding their child and making sure the teacher was aware and paid attention to these situations. They also addressed the desire to work with other parents to come up with ideas and events that would benefit all the children in the classroom. This was an interesting finding in that most of the research indicates that the tendency for parents to question teachers about their practices, ask for clarification or advocate for certain issues is a practice more commonly seen among white upper SES, formerly educated parents.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Oftentimes, parent advocates don't work alone. They can work together in complementary ways with other parents to create shared outcomes and a common vision for schools that serve all the children. When different parents take the lead and utilize their particular skills and resources, as well as connections, to reach out to each other, they create safe spaces where diverse parents can offer their perspective and ideas in different ways and in different contexts. Parents should also be willing to connect across sociocultural lines rather than just engaging with those individuals who share educational or socioeconomic similarities or those who live in the same neighborhood, for example, class, when they included a focus on the entire school community and on securing resources and advantages for all children and families of color change tended to be more sustainable and more widely felt. So how does what I've been discussing apply to you? Here are the action steps you can take regarding this topic.

Speaker 1: 18:36

The three main characteristics that are necessary for being a parent advocate include observation, effective communication and persistence. You need to observe and be informed about what's going on in your children's classrooms, as well as the entire school community. If there are things that you dislike, things that just don't sit well with you, then make the decision to do something about it. You may start out first going to the principal and seeing if a viable solution can be reached. If not, then move on to have discussions with school administrators to voice and communicate your concerns and share your perspective. If that doesn't work, you can always attend a school board meeting and raise questions and concerns there. The point is to take action and be persistent on behalf of your child or children. Some of the examples that I provided earlier, where parents enlisted other parents and organizations to support their cause, took years to resolve. You want the best outcomes and educational experiences for your children, so the effort is worth it. Significant change takes time, but the end product, the end goal, is one in which your child or children feel supported and empowered. Here are this episode's takeaways. As an advocate, it's better to build bridges and alliances, since fostering these types of relationships benefit your children and others in the school community.

Speaker 1: 20:18

Parent advocates work on behalf of their children and other children. Parent advocacy and education extends to all children those with mental and physical disabilities, those in special education, those in advanced placement courses and even those in preschool. Some of the key qualities of being a parent advocate include an awareness of how the educational system works, a willingness to work with school personnel to resolve issues or plan for your child's future motivation, to steer your child to higher-level classes or programs, and knowing how to get information or help if needed, and to speak out for your own child and other families and students if problems develop. Learning to advocate is an ongoing process and enlisting the assistance from others can prove to be beneficial In the advocacy journey. You need accurate information and support. You need accurate information and support. Parent advocates can work together in complementary ways with other parents to create shared outcomes and a common vision for schools that serve all of the children.

Speaker 1: 21:54

If you like this podcast, click, follow on your podcast player of choice to subscribe and get the latest episodes, and share this episode with anyone that you think would find it valuable. Be sure to tell your friends, family and community about my podcast. Thanks for listening today. I hope you come back for more K-12 educational discussions with even more exciting topics to untangle. Be sure to stay tuned. On the next episode, I'll be discussing the issue of racism in K-12 schools. Until next time, aim to learn something new every day.