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Parent involvement in a post-Proposition 2 1/2 era: The effects of politics and education funding on parent involvement in an urban setting: A case study
Abstract
Parent involvement in political activities is a rare form of parent participation. Most parents who take an interest in schools become involved with their child's classroom, attend school functions and activities, assist with fundraisers, attend PTA meetings. As the process for funding public school education has become more difficult and as decisions about education become more political, some parents have reacted to that trend and have become involved in the politics themselves. Changes in laws and education funding formulas in Massachusetts over the last decade has caused parents to become more protective, more vigilant of the school budget process, and of the way politicians position themselves on school issues. This is the case study of six parents who have been involved in schools and community politics over a decade in Millville, a community in western Massachusetts. The population of Millville is mainly elderly and White, while the school population is more than seventy percent minority, the majority of whom are Puerto Ricans. This has caused a clash of culture, age, and priorities. The schools have become a political battleground, and with parents no strangers to those battles as they fight to protect the rights of children to an equitable education. The involvement of these parents has been directly influenced by the enactment of a tax limitation proposal known as Proposition 2 1/2. A document review reveals the nature of the political climate of the Commonwealth during the last decade as it influenced local and state decision making about public schools and the funding of them. This study explores for what reasons parents participate in parent involvement through governance activities; how the climate of the last decade has influenced the types of activities in which parents engage; why parents make governance activities their priority; how their earlier experiences in parent involvement were similar to or different from the types of activities they find themselves engaged in now; how their earlier impressions of their involvement different from the current climate for parental involvement; and what types of parent involvement, given the current political climate of the Commonwealth, are most important now.
Subject Area
Education finance|Bilingual education|Public administration|Individual & family studies|Ethnic studies
Recommended Citation
Barrett, Lora McNeece, "Parent involvement in a post-Proposition 2 1/2 era: The effects of politics and education funding on parent involvement in an urban setting: A case study" (1993). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9329565.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9329565