Better Schools Through Parent Empowerment

<p><a href="https://www.idra.org/staff/aurelio-m-montemayor-m-ed/" target="_blank">Aurelio Montemayor </a>has been organizing parents for decades.  His work at the <a href="https://www.idra.org/" target="_blank">Intercultural Research Development Association,</a> or IDRA, as a family engagement coordinator has focused on a specific type of parent engagement, known as parent empowerment.  </p><p>He defines the four ways parents are typically engaged in schools as:</p><ol><li>As free labor and fundraisers.</li><li>Through education programs designed to help improve parenting</li><li>Through education programs designed for self improvement</li><li>Through meaningful parent / caregiver empowerment</li></ol><p>This fourth form of parent engagement - parent empowerment, is the only form that he believes leads to school wide improvement for all kids.  When done well, it can serve as an important tool for equity, but it requires that all parents feel empowered.</p><p>I'm joined by <a href="https://integratedschools.org/about/parent-board/">parent board</a> member, Sarah Becker, to discuss what this looks like in practice, and how people with racial or economic privilege, who often enter schools with outsized empowerment, can act as allies.</p><p><strong>LINKS</strong>:</p><ul><li><a href="https://www.idra.org/" target="_blank">Intercultural Research Development Association</a></li><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicano_Movement" target="_blank">Chicano Movement</a></li><li><a href="https://www2.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml" target="_blank">No Child Left Behind</a></li><li><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/18658/9780226120218"><i>When Middle-Class Parents Choose Urban Schools: Class, Race, and the Challenge of Equity in Public Education</i></a><i> </i>by Lynn Posey-Maddox</li><li><a href="https://bookshop.org/books/despite-the-best-intentions-how-racial-inequality-thrives-in-good-schools/9780190669829?aid=18658&listref=integrated-schools-bookclub-books" target="_blank"><i>Despite The Best Intentions: How Racial Ine