The shift in societal norms of the nuclear family has changed dramatically in the last few decades. There has always been a small part of the population, parents, who did not spend quality time with her children. With a population of the United States and the world growing exponentially, that small population has now grown into a population that is noticed and it affects the overall growth of the educational whole.
I have been teaching for the last six years. As a special education teacher my case load usually runs about 12 students per year. Out of those 12 at least one third of those students, parents chose not to participate in their child's education. The main excuse that I heard was that it was the teacher's job to teach and not the parents. On investigation, I discovered that all of those parents that had that comment had very low educational skills themselves. They worked menial, low-paying jobs and had a little status in the community.
Those parents who did participate in their children's education were at least high school educated, and even some college degrees. They had professional jobs, or at least had jobs that were above minimum wage. Not only were these parents involved, they were intensely so. The communication between teacher and parent was more common with this group. The children received help with their homework and also structures to get the homework done in the first place. They attended every teacher parent conference and had input about their child's education.
I do not know if these statistics would apply to mainstream education. If they do, one third is a large number of parents to do not care or does not have the capacity to participate in the system. And to retract, I am not stating that all low income non-educated parents do not care or participate in their child's education, I am just stating the observation in which I have made in my classroom.
Family involvement in education is also addressed by the Title I Act. This legislation reflects that hypotheses of low income parents, producing low achieving children. According to the legislation's publication it is specifically designed to enable schools to provide opportunities for low income and low achieving children. The use of this money can provide funding for outreach programs that bridge the gap between parents and the school. Working together at the school and the parents can overcome time and money obstacles that impede the parent participation with their child's education.