The benefits of education can work for all families

I am writing in response to the "Poor do not value education claims principal" exert from the St John the Baptist School newsletter published in the newspaper dated March 18.

I read this with interest as I am currently working with all principals of the Peninsula schools on a project to engage families in activities that will support their further engagement in their child's education.

This project particularly targets "poor" families or more accurately families from low socio economic backgrounds and they would be the families mentioned in the school newsletter.

Every school on the Peninsula has families from equity target groups and schools work hard to engage them because, as the newsletter suggested, there is a well-researched direct correlation between socio economic status and educational attainment.

As I had not yet met with the principal from St John the Baptist school (I was due to call him the day I read the paper) I was understandably incensed that any educated person would suggest the "poor" are to blame for low levels of educational achievement, let alone a principal of any school.

I had some initial discussion with my colleagues and we thought it was better to rethink our inclusion of St John the Baptist School in the project as the kind of elitist view projected in the article did not sit well within the philosophy of Peninsula family activities project.

This was quite disappointing as one of the important features of the project was to endeavour to remove all barriers to participation in the family activities by using a very inclusive approach of the whole Peninsula community, to exclude one school, albeit a Catholic one sitting within five public schools would not be conducive to the success of the project.

National Partnerships and leading Australian and international research state it is essential to the success of family and community engagement to be inclusive and collaborative of all community including both private and public education.

The pilot project is very much intended to test that research and is to the best of our knowledge a first formal approach of this kind of community strategy.

Following another conversation I was then further directed to the schools website to view the newsletter in its entirety.

It is fair to say I was even more incensed as to the inaccurate reporting of the newsletter by your paper.

The information within the newsletter sits within the body of research regarding the need for families to support their child's education to gain optimum results.

It is a school newsletter and while does not go into the research and underpinning explanatory reasons, and perhaps could have been given a more reader friendly manner, it does not makes any statements claimed by the heading and opening lines in the paper, and frankly I find it a stretch that it could be interpreted as such except for a headline.

Neither the newsletter nor the research lay any such blame at the feet of the poor.

The newsletter did not blame the poor or parents for their child's lack of success at school or in fact state that "poor do not value education".

Having worked for many years in public education across the Hunter Central Coast to support public schools to engage with families and community to increase learning outcomes for students, I can state there would be very few principals who would not say exactly what has been written in the newsletter by the St John's school principal.

I am pleased someone had the sense to remind me to question the source of the information, as a reminder not to believe all you read, as I could have been just as culpable in not doing my own homework.

That would have had a definite impact on the outcome of the pilot project we are about to undertake.

The truth is I am embarrassed to also admit that at any other time I may well have cast the article a cursory and critical glance and moved on, it was only the personal interest for the project that caused me to take deeper notice.

Having said that, I did contact the principal and have since met with him to discuss the participation of St John the Baptist School community and found he had a deep understanding of the issues affecting families in low socio economic communities, as do all Peninsula principals.

He was more than willing to engage with other schools to support all Peninsula families we hope to engage in this project to build community capacity through taking a proactive, whole community approach to address the research.

There is no question that parental engagement in student learning increases outcomes and it is a fact that many families with lower levels of education also have lower levels of engagement for a great many reasons, and it would be wonderful if the paper would consider engaging with the research in a deeper manner and discussing strategies to support schools to increase that participation and perhaps a more accurate quoting of school newsletters could also be well considered.

I hope the Peninsula community can count on the local newspaper to support the inclusive and collaborative project with positive publicity around the family activities to commence at Woy Woy South Public School in term two.

Reports such as the one in question create further divisions in our community rather than finding reasons to unite.

All schools have both rich and poor families and right of choice is important, but research tells us when communities work together, those differences in socio economic status can have a positive impact, as role modelling and mentoring demonstrate the benefits of education, and can work for all families rather than create a further divide of haves and have nots.

The comments by the principal of St John the Baptist that schools can't do it alone are echoed in every school in the region, far from blaming anyone, the combined Peninsula principals are taking a proactive approach to the research.

Email, 27 Mar 2013

Elizabeth McMinn, Gosford