Charleston Gazette May 8, 2007

HEADLINE: Schools can't do it by themselves

By Becky Ceperley

THERE is little debate about the importance of community and public involvement in public schools. Years of research have shown that parent and community involvement in schools improves student achievement. When parents and the wider community work with schools, students benefit in concrete and measurable ways. Student scores on standardized tests are higher. Where civic engagement in community affairs in general is high, teachers report higher levels of parental support and lower levels of student misbehavior.

In October 2006, The Education Alliance, Public Education Network and The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation released the first statewide Civic Index on quality public education. West Virginia was one of four pilots for a national Civic Index that measured the social capital and civic capacity of West Virginia and the nation. The 10 categories included in the Civic Index were developed by asking the public what they deemed crucial for a community in order to have a quality public education. The categories the public selected might surprise you. The categories were: education leadership of elected officials; tolerance and inclusiveness; active parents; strong civic organizations; performance data about the school/district; partnerships with higher education; knowledge of and voting for school board; active business community; youth involvement; and media coverage.

So how did West Virginia fare? West Virginia ranked extremely high for business involvement in public education. We also set the standard for residents who say their community takes responsibility for public education. Additionally, residents were found to turn to the news media first for information on what candidates say about public education, but we want more context on the information we receive from the media so that we can become better users of the information. Print media is by far the most common source of information about candidates. Television and family and friends are the next most common sources. We seem to rarely hear from the candidates themselves about their stances on public education. However, our voter turnout rate for school board elections is high.

The results of the Civic Index survey do indicate some areas for potential improvement. As West Virginians we value our youth, but feel schools need to teach students the skills needed to participate in our democracy and to participate in the decision-making when it comes to their school system. While our ranking of business involvement in public education in West Virginia was higher than the national average as well as our ranking for colleges and churches involvement in public education, our civic organizations did not fare as well. Our civic organizations are not perceived as particularly involved in the local public schools. There were also concerns about the availability of data on the test scores and graduation rates of our local high schools and how they compared to other schools in the area.

We rated jobs and the economy and health care as the top concerns for local leaders to address. Even though public education is a key component to improving the economy and providing a brighter future for the state, it rated as a second-tier issue.

The results of the Civic Index lay out a blueprint for reform to improve our public education system in West Virginia. We need to follow the lead of our business community and become more involved in public education.

As our civic organizations are looking for projects to undertake, look to your local schools. Inquire about how your organization may partner with them. As voters we need to make sure we ask candidates running for all public offices what their stances are on public education. We need to raise our involvement with public education to a higher level.

Our relationship with public education is a highly interdependent one. We need our schools to educate our young people and stimulate our economy. Schools need our support to survive. Our schools work hard to provide a high quality education for our youth, but they can’t do it alone.

Ceperley is president and CEO of the Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.