Parent Empowerment and its opposite, "Parent Engagement"

Photo by Edward Cisneros on Unsplash

First, I have a special announcement: we have surpassed 1,000 subscribers! To commemorate the occasion, we have updated our title to “The Parent Empowerment Newsletter” to better reflect our mission: empowering parents and community members with detailed discussions on the issues facing our local schools and communities.

To the folks who have been here since the beginning: thank you for the encouragement and spreading the word. If you are newer, welcome, we’re glad you’re here!

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As you may know, I have been following the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Area 5 Trustee special election closely and support Andrea McElroy. There are two trends emerging in this race worth noting for this election and others around the state.

First, to this point, Andrea’s opponent has been claiming to run a non-partisan race. Second, to counter Andrea’s priorities of trusting parents and committing the district to transparency, her opponent has coined a new term, “Parent Engagement,” that bears superficial resemblance to Parent Empowerment. As recent developments make clear, the opposition’s claims to non-partisanship are false, and “Parent Engagement” means the opposite of Parent Empowerment.

I. The Democratic Party Supports Andrea’s Opponent

At the outset of this special election, the opposition’s claims to non-partisanship were dubious. First, the Newport-Mesa school board’s Democratic Party majority of Ashley Anderson, Carol Crane, Michelle Murphy, and Leah Ursoylu voted to appoint Andrea’s opponent along partisan lines. Second, Andrea’s opponent said it would be “a detriment to a child” for schools to tell parents about their children’s gender identities—in line with the position of these same four Democratic Party board members.

Anderson, Crane, Murphy, and Ursoylu voted against a policy to notify parents of these issues on July 25, 2023. Andrea’s opponent was partisan from the beginning.

With the campaign underway in earnest, the opposition has dropped all pretense of non-partisanship. The opposing candidate recently posted a photo on her social media canvassing with Democrats Katrina Foley and Carol Crane.

Democrat Katrina Foley, 7th from left, and Democrat Carol Crane, 3rd from right in blue dress.

Additionally, the opposition’s campaign finance disclosures are replete with the usual Democratic Party funding sources, including a recent $9,500 check from the Teachers’ Union.

The Democratic Party was always behind Andrea’s opponent, and her claims of non-partisanship were false.

II. “Parent Engagement” is the opposite of Parent Empowerment

Like their false claims of non-partisanship, the opposition’s use of the new term “Parent Engagment” seems calculated to mask an anti-parent agenda. No one such as Andrea’s opponent who supports keeping secrets from parents can credibly claim to support parents.

Parent Empowerment is about giving parents a seat at the table when it comes to their children’s education. For many parents, the COVID shutdowns broke the trust between parents and schools. This traumatic event spurred parents across the ideological spectrum to question all aspects of public education, from how reading and math are taught, to parent notification policies, to greater transparency surrounding low test scores and fiscal accountability. Ample peer-reviewed studies (and common experience) demonstrate that student outcomes across all domains improve with parental involvement. As state test scores continue to fall despite increased spending, parents continue to push for greater transparency and accountability. Parent Empowerment recognizes that family is the solution when it comes to the issues facing today’s students, not the problem.

In contrast, “Parent Engagement” converts parents into passive observers of their children’s education. In Andrea’s opponent’s vision, parents would have no knowledge or input on “the current way [their] child would like to be identified.” Rather, such decisions would be left in the hands of the government and Sacramento bureaucrats, as would, presumably, the mental and physical healthcare of the child. Likewise, decisions regarding curriculum, including Ethnic Studies (which California holds is based on Critical Race Theory), would be made without community input. Andrea’s opponent would merely “advise and consent” to the district administration. Under “Parent Engagement,” parents go from being active participants to merely along for the ride.

Although “Parent Engagement” may sound like Parent Empowerment, the similarity ends there. Rather, the term is meant to confuse voters and mask an anti-parent agenda.

CONCLUSION

In the Newport-Mesa special election, the emergence of the “Parent Engagement” term appears to be the Democratic Party’s answer to Andrea’s Parent Empowerment message. However, no one who would keep secrets from parents can claim to be for empowering them. We will be monitoring this term “Parent Engagement” to see whether and how it is deployed in other elections and contexts.

Do you have an issue you’d like covered? Drop me a line!