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No Educator Left Behind:
Parent Responsibility

No Educator Left Behind is a series providing answers from the U.S. Department of Education to questions about the federal No Child Left Behind Act and how it will affect educators. If you have a question about No Child Left Behind, send an e-mail to Ellen Delisio, and we will submit your question to the Department of Education.

QUESTION:

When will the No Child Left Behind law make parents accountable for ensuring their children attend school? Some children are being left behind by parents who do not believe that school attendance is important.

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION:

Parental involvement always has been a centerpiece of Title I. A synthesis of research concludes that the evidence is consistent, positive, and convincing: families have a major influence on their childrens achievement in school and through life. When schools, families, and community groups work together to support learning, children tend to do better in school, stay in school longer, and like school more.

Under Title I, Part A of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), a school must jointly develop, with the parents of children served under Title I, Part A, a school-parent compact as a component of its written parental involvement policy.

The school-parent compact must describe:

  • the schools responsibility to provide high-quality curriculum and instruction in a supportive and effective learning environment that enables children served under Title I, Part A to meet the states student academic achievement standards;
  • ways in which parents will be responsible for supporting their childrens learning (for example, monitoring attendance, homework completion, or television watching; volunteering in their childs classroom; and participating as appropriate in decisions relating to the education of their children and positive use of extracurricular time); and
  • the importance of communication between teachers and parents.

The U. S. Department of Education has prepared Parental Involvement: Title I, Part A Non-Regulatory Guidance, which may be of assistance to districts.

Read previous questions and answers in our No Educator Left Behind archive.