Parents in poor communities do care about their children’s schooling. Here’s how to get them involved [HechingerReport.org]

Let no educator, parent or advocate ever say parents don’t care about how their children do in school. Most really do, and given the right chance, will do all they can to help.

Here in the heart of the nation’s poorest region, in a historic but partially destitute town, parents are gathering regularly to chart a course for better schools, a better community and better lives for their families.

It’s happening through a growing program from the national nonprofit group Parents for Public Schools, based in Jackson, but with active chapters in big cities and small towns across the country.

The organization’s newly revamped Parent Engagement Program, or PEP, now exists in several Mississippi towns and elsewhere: Kalamazoo, Michigan; Cincinnati; Seattle; and Pitt County, North Carolina. (The expansion has been funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, which is among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)

[For more of this story, written by Alan Richard, go to http://hechingerreport.org/par...-heres-get-involved/]