Remember, you read it here first.
A new report by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching confirms a survey conducted this summer by the Deseret News - and the results from both surveys are not good.The prestigious Carnegie Foundation reported recently that 88 percent of Utah teachers believe lack of parental support is a problem in their schools.
The Deseret News survey did not ask precisely the same question, but several that were in the same vein and which all led to the same conclusion - that the great majority of parents don't support their children in their educational pursuits, don't encourage reading or homework in the home, don't discipline their children and don't have confidence either in teachers or in the educational system.
Many of the teachers who participated in the News survey included margin notes that expressed dismay at the extent to which they were being asked to shoulder problems generated at home.
Parents who abdicate their responsibility for preparing their children to become contributing, sharing adults have dumped too much on teachers, they complain.
Education in Utah is taking some new directions, and parental involvement is one of the cornerstones on which the new order is to rise, according to concepts being propounded by the State Office of Education.
Utah's strategic plan for the future sees the education of each child as a partnership involving not only the child and teacher, but the parents, the business community and the larger community as well.
Drop parents out of the equation and you have a pretty shaky foundation to build on.
This is a busy world and parents in the majority of households are being pulled in several different directions at any given time. Parents who become as involved in their children's education as the new plan envisions will have to reorder some priorities, perhaps.
Many parents are, unfortunately, not prepared by their own experiences to participate fully in their children's education.
Educators face the challenge of helping to educate these parents as well as their offspring if the desired ends are to be achieved.
That's no small undertaking.
There are bright spots along the way. Thousands of Utah parents ARE involved in their children's schooling. They put a high priority on education and give it the necessary time and effort to make it successful. Their children, incidentally, are among those who shine in schools, Utah teachers told the newspaper survey.
Faithful, hardworking parent volunteers create special classrooms for their own children and for others whose parents are either not able or not willing to spend the same time.
Time in the classroom, of course, is not the only opportunity to enrich the educational opportunity for your own child and for others. And the opportunity extends to others in the community who are not even parents.
Utah's educational leaders have a splendid vision of what could happen in the state. Whether it does will depend largely on how much parents and others are willing to become vital contributors to the education partnership.
Without their support, not much will happen and teachers will continue to bear a disproporationate share of a burden that rightfully belongs to all of us.