Blog 4

In David Segal's post about "The New Educational Divide", he states that children "..of parents who play this active role in their education will tend to perform better in school than children of less-involved parents." Basically, he says throughout the article that if children have parents who are more involved in their schools then the child will do better. But if the parent isn't as involved, the child may well fall behind. Segal states that "... for any of a variety of reasons - health, language barriers, constraints from employment, or, sometimes, lack of concern - some children simply do not have stable adult guidance in their schooling." He recommends that charter schools have admission for a random sample of students, then the student and family could decide whether or not to attend. "Parental engagement in education should be strongly encouraged, but having involved parents should never be a prerequisite for a child to gain access to the best opportunities. That would mean many kids - those who are already somewhat disadvantaged - would unfairly miss out." This means that students shouldn't have to have parents that are actively involved in their schooling for them to have access to certain opportunities. The student would unfairly miss out if the parent didn't have the means or a way to be involved. I agree with what he says. Students should equally have a chance to further their education the best way they can, not based on what their parents do in their school community. If a student's parents couldn't speak English, that shouldn't reflect on how much opportunity the student has in his or her school. Likewise for any financial reasons.