TCLA: Bill of Rights: Features: 7: Parent U-Turn

Parent U-Turn Takes Action

Summer Research Seminar 2002

Photo: John Rogers & Laila Hasan with Parents

Parent U-Turn (PUT) participated this summer in UCLA/IDEA's 5-week seminar on educational access and equity in July and August 2002. Parents explored how they can play an active role in holding school officials accountable for providing decent conditions and meaningful opportunities to learn. PUT focused on how a bottom-up accountability strategy can lead to a new form of parent involvement in California schools.

During the seminar, PUT members studied educational access and equity in the context of Los Angeles schools and communities. Course readings introduced the parents to the fields of Sociology of Education and educational research methods. These academic tools were used to test out the possibilities of a bottom-up accountability system that enables parents to monitor student opportunity to learn.

PUT experimented with methods of how parents can contribute information about school conditions to the state-mandated School Accountability Report Cards (SARCs). Parents worked as a research team and conducted field research in several Los Angeles area schools. Parents explored various research tools, inlcuding, audio tape recordings of interviews, video tapings, surveys and observations. Parents also met with educational researchers, community organizers, parent advocates, school administrators, civil rights attorneys, and elected officials to investigate how parent research might become a standard part of the SARC process. On the final day of the seminar the PUT research team presented their findings, methods, and analysis of the politics of implementation to a public audience of UCLA faculty, civil rights attorneys, educators, community advocates and parents.

Laila Hasan is the Director of UCLA's Parent Project.

Photo: Laila Hasan with Parents

Parents Take Action
As part of Parent U-Turn's research, Mary Johnson, Emma Street, Valerie Muñoz and Angelita Andrade conducted a survey of Los Angeles parents at supermarkets and malls. The survey questioned parents on their involvement with their children’s schools, the quality of their child’s learning materials, teachers and facilities. According to Mary Johnson, the parents found that "there aren’t enough bathrooms for the kids and most parents feel that their kids are not getting a quality education." Learn more about the tool of conducting surveys by watching the video or take a look at the results of the parent survey.

Mary Johnson's Letter to President George Bush