Chapter 3: From Private Citizens to Public Actors: The Development of Parent Leaders Through Community Organizing

—Parent leader with People Acting in Community Together (PACT),

San Jose, California

The value of parent engagement in schools in low-income communities is now broadly recognized (Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, & Davies, 2007). Mainstream understanding of parent engagement, however, assigns a relatively limited role for parents (Warren, Hong, Rubin, & Uy, 2009). Traditional approaches are often referred to as parent involvement and emphasize an individualistic and relatively passive role for parents (Shirley, 1997). Parents are mainly involved around their own child’s education, supporting the school’s agenda through home-based activities and occasional school events.

Many educators, however, are coming to recognize the need to move beyond traditional forms of parent involvement toward meaningful engagement of families in the life of schools. In these models, parents are not only supporters of their own child’s learning—as important as that is—but also advocates and decision makers at the school and district level. Some educators, for instance, have called for the development of demand parents—parents who are capable of advocating for their own child as well as other children in the school (Crew, 2007). Demand parents support their own child while also demanding systemic improvements and holding schools accountable for change.