I’m the parent of a public school student myself. So I know how much parents want to help.
American parents are more involved in the schools than ever before — much more so than in other countries.
I followed three American kids who studied as foreign exchange students in Finland, South Korea and Poland. You didn’t see parents at those schools. They weren’t coaching soccer or accompanying classes on field trips. I didn’t see those kinds of extracurricular activities. Instead, the parents were involved at home, working directly with their child’s education.
Research shows that it’s much more impactful to prioritize learning at home over community-building activities.
There’s this amazing study: The more time that parents spent on extracurriculars in a country’s schools, the worse the kids did in reading. It’s shocking.