PARENTS AS MANAGERS
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Sta,—Hilda Oakeley has raised a very important point in urging that parents should be represented on the boards of managers of elementary schools. May I illustrate out of my own experience? At the village school which my young son attends the six managers appear to elect themselves, and to be responsible to nobody but the Director of Education for their actions. They appoint all the staff except the Head Master and need not—often do got—consult him over the appointments, with curious results upon timetables and subjects taught. Sometimes a class has been without a teacher for weeks (thus burdening the rest of the staff with impossible teaching conditions), because the managers did not care for any of the candidates and preferred that the children should go untaught until a " suitable " person could be found. I cannot discover that any of the present managers has ever attended an elementary school himself, or would ever think of sending a child of his, own to one. Neither have they special educational qualifications for the job. I do not question their good intentions and the sincerity of their service ; but I do question whether the board of managers ought to be composed entirely of people of this sort. A person who has never had inside experience of an elementary school as parent, child or teacher cannot be expected to approach its problems in the same way as those who have. If it be argued that such " inside " experience is a disqualification (and I agree that an all-parent board of managers would be a bad thing, also that parents of children at present in the school might be temporarily disqualified on " emotional " grounds) one must ask why old-boy and ex-parent governors are so much valued in connexion with public and secondary schools.
Meanwhile there appears to be no way of obtaining representation of parents' views in the official management of the school. I agree with Hilda Oakeley that for parents to be given a legal share in the planning and supervision of the elementary sthools would be one of the best pieces of adult education and of democratic reconstruction which
the Board of Education could consider.—Yours, &c., B. R. M.
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