Is there a correlation between poorly performing schools and lack of parental involvement?
No is really the basic answer. It is clearly an element in poorly performing schools, but from what we can tell so far, it is not a major issue or a major factor. The reason I hesitate is because the measure of parental involvement is somewhat difficult. Is it how many people turn out to elect parents to the governing body? Is it the number of those that come to the annual parents meeting? You know you can play it in different ways. So I think the short answer is no. Q : Who makes the decisions under your system and how do you handle capital expenditures? A: Let me take the second one first because it is more straightforward. Capital expenditure is determined by the school district. Major capital expenditures are funded by the school district. But, minor repairs and so on are the responsibility of the individual school and schools can put money away from one year to the next in order to build up a larger pot of money to carry out more extensive expenditures. On the capital side, there
