values in your child, reading to them, helping with homework, making sure they receive proper nutrition, volunteering for activities at school, etc.). The latter is more concerned with setting policy and challenging administrators. Although both are needed, personal parental involvement, in my mind, is much more important and is a core part of our school system. In big urban districts with a high concentration of poor, it's so hard to get parents personally involved in their child's education. As a coach, I've had some success getting parents involved via school sports programs, but it's still difficult nonetheless. As for the "parent trigger laws," I agree with you that they are not a good solution; you can play musical chairs with principals and teachers, but ultimately parents can't replace themselves or their own children. I think we need to tread carefully when talking about parents personally involved with their children's education. Invovlement should not be measured as parents meeting expectations set by the teacher. I think what you mean when you say "It's so hard to get parents personally involved" is that systems of communication in many schools are generally poor. I was writing this with a school-wide scope in mind, but is important to discuss how individual teachers engage their parents as well. Some caregivers are just not going to be their for their students like students deserve. But most families just need a time, a space, and a medium which work for everyone on the education team. Creating these