<i>The key to succesful education is involved parents. It&#x27;s really that simple.</i><p>Are you a parent yourself? (I am, of four children, two now adults.) Have you ever been a parent in more than one country? (I have both here in the United States and in Taiwan.) Do you regularly communicate with other parents about how well school programs are working for their children? (I participate in a national online network of parents of gifted children every day.)<p>Parent involvement of a certain kind is necessary, but it is not sufficient (unless it takes the form of homeschooling, which is something I did for the primary education of all four of my children). With equally involved and caring parents, pupils and students do better or worse depending especially on curriculum design, and depending also on teacher training and school administration. Studies of school districts that had forced changes of administrators of schools under the now-expired No Child Left Behind law showed that changing administrators in a school can improve learning outcomes for the same group of children brought up by the same group of parents. Moreover, teachers often increased their job satisfaction after such administrative changes.[1]<p>Almost every thread about education on Hacker News has a top comment saying, &quot;Parental involvement is the most important thing.&quot; I could agree with that statement (I largely do, as a homeschooling parent) without thinking that statement is any more than a middle-brow dismissal[2] of the submitted article&#x27;s detailed text unless we have something to discuss here about a) what brings about more parental involvement and b) what else can be done at the margin to improve schools for parents who are already well involved. Let&#x27;s discuss those issues here rather than be dismissive.<p>AFTER EDIT: I have my own top-level in this thread with substantive response to what the original article author said, but it is pushed far down below the fold by the long subthread development here.<p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;sections&#x2F;ed&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;27&#x2F;443110755&#x2F;no-child-left-behind-what-worked-what-didnt" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;sections&#x2F;ed&#x2F;2015&#x2F;10&#x2F;27&#x2F;443110755&#x2F;no-child...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4692598#up_4693920" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4692598#up_4693920</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10103985#up_10106466" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=10103985#up_10106466</a>