The authors of the crappy research paper conclude their crappy opinion piece, “Parental Involvement is Overrated,” with the following thoughts:

When the federal government issues mandates on the implementation of programs that increase parental involvement, schools often encourage parents to spend more time volunteering, to attend school events, to help their children with homework and so forth. There is a strong sentiment in this country that parents matter in every respect relating to their children’s academic success, but we need to let go of this sentiment and begin to pay attention to what the evidence is telling us.

Conventional wisdom holds that since there is no harm in having an involved parent, why shouldn’t we suggest as many ways as possible for parents to participate in school? This conventional wisdom is flawed. Schools should move away from giving the blanket message to parents that they need to be more involved and begin to focus instead on helping parents find specific, creative ways to communicate the value of schooling, tailored to a child’s age. Future research should investigate how parental involvement can be made more effective, but until then, parents who have been less involved or who feel uncertain about how they should be involved should not be stigmatized.

What should parents do? They should set the stage and then leave it.

Yeah, no.

Parents should get more involved. They should attend PTA meetings, they should volunteer, they should attend board of education meetings, they should vote for their representatives on the school board, they should tell administrators about both the good and bad practices at the school. Kids who live in communities with a high percentage of involved parents have higher test scores than communities with low parental involvement. (This fact is extremely well documented. I can dredge up the studies at some point.)

Parents shouldn’t be assholes. They should assume that the teacher is overwhelmed, underpaid, and mismanaged. They shouldn’t complain and never compliment or contribute. They should try to restrain themselves to one complaint per year. Your kid will suffer, if you complain too much. And if there’s that much to complain about, it is really better to move or supplement at home. One person can’t change the system.

Parents have the right to have access to their kids and their schools. Parents and other community members pay for the schools with their local tax money and have the right to see the results.

There is a limit to what schools can do. Public education, even in the fanciest towns, is not the same as a private school education. Keep one’s expectations low and educate your kids in all sorts of way that have nothing to do with the Common Core or SAT scores. Talk to them. Take them on hikes. Play trains with them. Visit places. Tell them stories about growing up in the big city or the little town. Read outloud to them for as long as you can. As they get older, coax them out of their bedrooms and find common interests.