Parental Contracts No Longer on Davis Agenda

There was no mistaking the vehemence that Gov. Gray Davis once attached to his mission to strong-arm parents into helping improve the lot of students in the state’s beleaguered schools.

“Parents simply must face up to their responsibilities in educating their own children,” he told a Los Angeles audience in September 1997, in what was billed by his gubernatorial campaign as the intellectual kickoff to his candidacy.

“I believe the time has come to require parents to sign a contract each year before their child is admitted to public school, committing them to help their kids with homework and participate in regular school meetings.”

Now, however, the time has apparently passed.

Parental contracts--which were to have included a requirement to “volunteer” at a child’s school--were not included in the four bills backed by the governor during the current special legislative session on education. Davis has not committed to back two Democratic bills that are watered-down versions of what he once proposed. Within the administration, there is a sense that the idea simply won’t work, at least not the way Davis once envisioned it.

In short, the proposal has gone the way of many campaign promises, knocked off the radar screen by political circumstance and the inevitable collision with reality.

“To just have a blanket rule that every parent of every kid has to sign a contract--it’s an impractical way to get parental input,” said one state education official, who like others refused to be identified when discussing the sensitive issue. “I mean, we have parents who are working several jobs, just barely keeping their heads above water.”

Administration officials said Davis will continue to bestir schools to find ways--including voluntary contracts--to boost parental involvement. But the idea will probably be fodder for Davis’ bully pulpit rather than part of his legislative agenda.

“The idea hasn’t gone away. The question is how do you make that occur?” said one administration official.

“There are plenty of private schools and some public schools that ask parents to sign contracts,” said the official. But in most public schools, “it’s not an enforceable contract,” he said.

In truth, the proposal appeared to be problematic at its inception. Initially, Davis said that students should be required to do homework of increasing length as they moved up in grade. Parents, he said, should be required to sign agreements to help children with that homework and to assist at their schools.

But there was an immediate question: What penalty could be assessed against parents who, for lack of interest or lack of time, did not live up to the terms of the deal? Unlike the private or charter schools that first adopted the contract idea, rank-and-file public schools cannot retaliate by kicking the offending families out of school.

“You can’t mandate that,” one administration official said flatly.

Besides its perceived unworkability, the idea also has been eclipsed, at least for now, by Davis’ desire to emphasize other campaign vows.

When he first uttered his plan to sign up parents, Davis was noticeably avoiding any criticism of teachers--a move that was seen at the time as a flinch at the might of the politically powerful teachers unions. By focusing on parents, he was making a common-sense pitch that carried with it none of the political downside of lambasting teachers.

As the campaign progressed and education retained its lock on public interest, however, Davis embraced more reforms. The four bills he forwarded for the special session would boost teaching of reading and institute a high school graduation test, teacher peer review and a school evaluation system.

One state official familiar with the legislative agenda said that Davis’ focus was simply limited to three issues--reading, accountability and teacher training.

“And this,” the official said of the parental contracts, “is something that got lost.”

Separately, Assemblywoman Nell Soto, a Democrat from Ontario, has sponsored two bills--one for the special session and one for the regular legislative session--that would make school boards devise a plan by which parents are “given the opportunity to enter into a school-parent compact.”

The now-voluntary bills were softened from their original wording to “require” contracts, but the governor has yet to throw his weight behind even the moderated versions, education officials said.

Ted Toppin, Soto’s spokesman, said that the assemblywoman backs Davis’ special session proposals but believes the “missing piece” is parental responsibility.

“If you’re going to have training for teachers and tests for students and audits for schools, why not compacts for the parents?” Toppin said.