And when I saw Kevin on the Today show, his ideas were so close to mine that I looked up Project Appleseed s Web site, he says. My goal with the pledge was to try to ensure that my daughter get the best possible education without having to find a private school, Warner recalls. Private schools may have additional resources, but parent involvement is still essential. Project Appleseed could be the template for the way parents become active in their children s education. Warner s expectations for the pledge in his Milwaukee, Wisconsin, school system sound simple enough, but the way to education reform has never been easy.
Schools don t always think of parents as a resource.
They ve often been regarded as a nuisance or an interference, says Walker. Many educators are just now realizing how important this involvement is. The responsibility for this historic lack of parental help can t be placed solely on the shoulders of the education system. Judy Hajek, Alabama teacher and mother, points out that many parents weren t all that crazy about school themselves. We have many parents who didn t finish high school.