I'm not suggesting that parents should never be involved in their kids' schooling. That tension is right there on the table on conference day. There's no getting away from it. Often enough, I'm just plain inspired by the families. One father who works two jobs as a chef took time out last month to visit all his son's teachers.
Feedback is one thing.
And of course there are times when parents shouldn't sit back and expect things at school to be fine. If parents aren't vigilant, their kids risk ending up with the least inspiring teachers, for example. For the most part, high-school students are assigned to teachers by a computer, and schools resist making any changes once the machinery spits out the schedule. The dirty little secret in schools, though, is that the weakest teachers are seldom given classes in which there a lot of children whose parents are willing to speak up. I thought her child would find more stimulating.