21st-Century Parent Centers: Sites of Urban Parent Empowerment and Capacity Building

• In Event: Organizing Parents for Social Justice in Urban Schools: A New Urban Model of Parent Engagement

Abstract

This paper documents how helping parents becoming critical researchers of equity and access in urban education led to parents becoming change agents within their schools. More specifically, the paper describes how two Parent U-Turn members implemented their critical research skills to transform urban school parent centers. Through their involvement in a critical summer research seminar at UCLA, the authors read theoretical and empirical studies related to the sociology of education, research methodology, and community organizing. They also engaged in the critical research process, creating and then studying the assessment tools parents can use to effectively evaluate the quality of urban schools. Years later, both authors have served as school parent liaisons and implemented similar opportunities for their parents to learn critical research skills. They have accessed information from existing state data systems, surveyed youth and parents, interviewed school leaders and union representatives, and conducted school observations using structured protocols. This body of information has enabled Parent-U-Turn to shine a light on inequitable and inadequate conditions in their schools and leverage additional resources from official bodies. Further, the authors will speak to the challenges they faced, as working class women of color, in attempting to enact new identities as critical researchers and parent advocates within traditional school locations.

Most significantly, this paper describes how several Parent U-Turn members worked as parent liaisons and transformed parent centers into spaces of parent empowerment. Grounded in strength-based models, the authors worked to counter deficit model thinking and low expectations of parents (Valencia & Solorzano, 1997). The authors worked from a community cultural wealth model to provide multiple opportunities for parents to build on different forms of capital (Yosso, 2005). For example, the parent centers became sites for collecting data and information that parents could utilize for site-based management decisions or running for elected positions. Parents were empowered to request and analyze data to help them better decide how to reallocate the Title I budget.
The paper provides two case studies of parent centers designed to foster parents as powerful stakeholders of change and reform in our public schools. The authors provide best practices strategies on how parents can volunteer in their school, how to navigate the school system, and how to advocate for the benefit of children. Parent organizations, administrators, and policy makers will benefit from hearing empirical data about how 21st century parent centers can empower parents to move “beyond the bake sales” to becoming spaces of advocacy for their children (Davies, Henderson, Johnson & Mapp, 2006).

Authors

• Valerie Munoz, Parent-U-Turn/UCLA

• Guadalupe M. Aguiar, Los Angeles Unified School District