There are all together six goals of a common school system, which I'm going to discuss in details throughout my essay and also how parental involvement can help schools achieve these goals. The overall general goal of the system is to secure democracy. "Thomas Jefferson argued that democracy required citizens to deliberate publicly and to use their reason to decide among competing ideas for guiding the nation." (Oakes & Lipton, 1999, P. 4) Jefferson believed that all children should be provided three years of schooling and that will ready them with citizenship, these three years will be focused on basic literacy-reading, writing, and math. In 1830s, Horace Mann argued "all Americans should be educated in ¥common' schools that would complement what families taught their children at home." (Oakes & Lipton, 1999, P. 5) Common schools are later to be called what is known today as Public school, which means equal school, but schools today are not equal. Mann wanted common schools to teach knowledge and habits and basic literacy, those things are crucial for a citizen to function in a democracy.

As I have mentioned earlier there are six goals of a common school system. The first goal

Become informed about policies and programs

Parents need to learn about specific school policies and programs regarding parent involvement. Find out if programs have been implemented to support these policies and if there is a committee for reviewing school policies and practices in which parents can participate.

Many parents don't know how to initiate involvement in their children's schools. Schools need to clarify the available opportunities for parents to become involved and how parent involvement can positively impact on their children. This can help parents become better-informed consumers and will allow them to more effectively allocate their time and resources.

Many schools are mandated to provide parents with opportunities to be advisors and decision-makers for school matters. Find out what your school is doing and how you can play an active role.

Offer ongoing professional support and training for teachers in their work with parents

I believe parental involvements are very important for the schools but I also think it is very difficult for the parents to get involved because some of the parents are immigrants and they do not speak English or have enough education to teach their children. The children solely have to learn from school. I have personal experience about that because I emigrated here from China when I was nine years old with my parents. In China my parents were very involved with the elementary school I was attending, they talked to my teachers everyday to see how I was doing in my classes. But once they got to the United States, they totally withdraw themselves from my school. One of the major reasons was that they didn't speak English that well and are afraid to associate themselves with my teachers. They would receive notes from schools saying that there is an Open house, I could tell that they wanted to go and see how I was doing in school but each time they ended up not going. But they would still ask me everyday of the things I did in school, but I believe that was not enough. Although at the time I was pretty happy because whenever I would get in trouble they would not find out because I know they wouldn't go and ask my teachers what I did wrong. But I believe that I would of done better if my parents were involved with my teachers, it would give me more pressure to do well in school. But another reason that they didn't participate in school is that when they first came here, they had to work extra hard to earn money, because of the language barrier they weren't able to find relaxing jobs. My parents worked very hard, I hardly saw them, and they would come in late at night and then wake up early in the morning to go to work. It is very hard for them, so they find themselves out of energy when it comes to parental involvement at school. I remember them always telling me to have a habit of self-learning because they said that they didn't really have time to concentrate on me because in order to provide me with future education they needed to

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Approximate Word count = 2033
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)