Many of you have already experienced and/or seen school start for the 2012-13 school year.  Most of the rest of you---including those of you just about everywhere in Texas---will begin this Monday. 

We talk a lot in this country about the condition of our schools and how to improve their performance.  We talk about what teachers should do, what principals should do, what school boards and superintendents should do.  It seems, in fact, that quite often the talk is perhaps too focused on what the schools should do better absent the broader picture furthering the cause.


Our entire country would be proportionally healthier to the degree we all remember that as much as we need quality schools functioning properly and engaging in continuous improvement, we just as importantly need true parental involvement and continuous growth in that effort.  We desperately need parents and others in the community introspecting about the role they play and how to take that crucial responsibility to a new level in whatever way they feel will make a difference. 


Schooling in America should improve every year.  Parenting in America should improve every year.  If both are on this trajectory---each considering how they can further support the mutual mission they both share, i.e. the strengthening of our individuals, families, and children as a part of one community---we will improve our great country together.  Most of us believe this country is in critical need of strengthening right about NOW!