But few differ in all respects and we therefore hope that practically everyone will find something of interest and relevance in the pages that follow. Specific policies, practices, and actions are the responsibility of the parent and the school, the teacher and principal, the school board and the State. The appropriate design and implementation of these policies, practices, and ac- tions will differ according to local conditions and it is not the place of the federal government to interfere. The purpose of this volume is to provide reliable information that people can, if they wish, put to use in various ways. In most instances, the reader will rapidly be able to visualize some implications for action of findings that we have included.
Parents are the child's first and most influential teachers.
If parents are not effective teachers, then in most cases the school will have far greater difficulty being effective. Besides setting overall standards and furnishing resources, perhaps their most important function is to create the conditions in which parents and teachers, working together, can maximize educational effectiveness. The passive learner usually doesn't learn much and the hostile student rarely learns anything worthwhile. While it is true that some children have difficulty mastering complicated subjects, few are without resources to do so. More commonly, the resources they have are underused.