We need to worry about the kids without pushy parents

The Oli de Botton Education column

Putting parents first in education has been a New Labour mantra. This year’s Queens Speech was no different. Parents may soon be able to take schools to court if the education provided is not up to scratch. This is welcome (so long as everyone is sensible and minor concerns are not over-inflated). The more challenge schools feel from the families they serve the greater the chance of improved accountability and improved outcomes.

However, it is not the parents who complain that we should be worried about. They already have avenues to pursue. In fact up and down the country it is the sharp elbowed professional parents who become ‘activist investors’ in their child’s education, serving on governing bodies and building effective relationships with staff. And as a result they often secure better outcomes for their kids. Fair enough.

The real problem is when parents don’t take an interest. We should be concerned when parents don’t attend meetings, don’t read with their children and don’t complain. There are of course a number of reasons why this might be case; parents may have had bad experiences at school themselves, they may not have enough time, or they may have poor parenting skills. But regardless, it is the children of these parents who often do worse in school and are excluded from the best opportunities. And so our central task, if we are interested in breaking the link between background and achievement, is to go into bat for the kids who don’t have the sort of parents who might take a school to court.

Of course this is a tricky area and no one has all the answers. However, an interesting experiment is underway in the US. KIPP academies are state run schools that seek to make-up for poor parenting. Kids are expected to be at school from 6 to 8 and days are packed with curricular and extra curricular activities. Home work is heavy (but often done in school) and the school year has been changed so there is no longer six week summer holidays where kids are left unsupported at home. These schools are in their early stages, but their approach seems the right one, building up the academic and social capital for children whose parents can’t do it for them.