DAVID WATERS: GOOD SCHOOLS BEGIN WITH PARENTS

As they sat in a school less than a mile from the city’s most infamous grocery store parking lot, the education reformers took turns talking about the many and considerable efforts under way to save the kids in the neighborhood.

The U. S. Secretary of Education spoke of the federal government’s “Race to the Top,” which is pumping millions of dollars into school systems that adopt more rigorous standards and standardized testing.

“If we as adults meet our babies halfway, they are going to do extraordinary things,” Arne Duncan told the “town hall meeting” Wednesday at Cornerstone Preparatory Academy in Binghamton.

The superintendent of the Achievement School District discussed the state’s big investment in recruiting better teachers and principals to raise proficiency scores and other “measurables” in the lowest achieving schools.

“Two percent of the students were proficient in reading three years ago,” Chris Barbic. “In two years’ time, it has blown the roof off achievement, making 10 to 15 percent gains in some grades.”

The superintendent of Shelby County Schools talked about the local effort to create Innovation Zones that give more resources to the lowest performing schools and more autonomy to the best principals and teachers.

“The money is important, but that’s really a small part of it,” Dorsey Hopson said. “It really comes down to principals and strong teachers.”

Then it was the principal’s turn to speak.

“I’m a little nervous,” Lionel Cable allowed as he sat among some of the nation’s education-reform VIPs.

Cable’s nerves didn’t rattle his nerve. He said what every teacher, principal, administrator and education secretary in the room already knew or needed to hear.

“We can’t do this all by ourselves. We need the parents,” Cable said. “Until we actually fix the home, we’re always going to be throwing money at this issue.”

We get that, right? That parents are the first teachers. That a child’s education begins years before they step into a school. That it continues — or doesn’t — every time they step out of the school and into a street or store or parking lot?

So why do we hold everyone but parents accountable for a child’s education?

Cable, now in his fourth year as principal of Douglass K-8 Optional School, expects the parents in his school to do more than drop their children off at the door.

Under Cable’s leadership, Douglass has been making double-digit gains in achievement scores — which he attributed Wednesday to iZone reforms that “removed the handcuffs” from principals, teachers and parents.

Cable was allowed to devote more resources to hiring his own staff and faculty. Together, they set longer school hours and chose curriculum and assessments that work for Douglass.

“One size doesn’t fit all,” Cable said. “What Douglass needs isn’t necessarily what Ridgeway or White Station need.”

Cable would know. He worked at both highachieving East Memphis schools before taking the job at Douglass.

Cable also knows that test scores measure more than student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

They also measure parent achievement and effectiveness.

“What makes White Station and Ridgeway sustainable no matter who the principal is, or who the teachers are?” Cable asked me Thursday. “It’s the parents and how they engage the educators at the school.”

Cable believes schools should be teaching parents as well as their children.

Douglass does that in several ways.

Stand UP (Stand University for Parents), a research-based, 10-week program that teaches parents how to get involved in their children’s academics, help them learn at home, and work with teachers to keep their children on track for college.

Snacks for Stats, afterschool meetings every nine weeks in which educators show parents how to understand their child’s test scores and grades and develop strategies to help them learn at home. About 170 parents came to the meeting this week.

GED classes in the school.” We want our students to see their parents learning, too,” Cable said.

A community liaison, a full-time staff member who helps connect parents with social services, job training, health care and other needs.

“All parents want their children to be better than they are,” Cable said. “They want to help, they just don’t know how. Teaching kids and parents has to go hand in hand. We’ve had countless number of education system changes. That’s the one piece we haven’t changed.”

In other words, education reform won’t succeed all the way unless we “meet our babies” halfway home.

SATURDAY: Better parenting for kids and their brains.