Parents’ Group Is Relentless in Urging Changes at School

NEW YORK — Martha Harvey thinks it’s just a matter of setting a good example.

Harvey is president of the A. Phillip Randolph High School Parents Assn., and it’s a commitment she and her fellow board members take seriously. They meet through the summer and at least two times a month during the school year. Some even give up vacation time. And some stay on after their own kids graduate, to help the next group learn the ropes.

“We feel that by doing, we exemplify what we expect our kids to do,” Harvey says.

This is not a group that runs bake sales. They press the school for real changes, such as mid-term reports, which teachers resisted.

They also run political interference at the Board of Education for Lottie Taylor, the principal, such as supporting her in cutting an administrator instead of a classroom teacher.

Taylor encourages such involvement. To her, lack of parent participation is an obstacle in obtaining her pet school reform: vouchers to let families shop for schools.

Taylor is all for parental choice.

But she thinks the voucher lobby talks too much about choice and not enough about responsibility.

“There is a broader obligation on the part of the parent once he chooses. The parent has to be a real parent.”