My advocacy presentation took place on February 23. This was a few days after turning in the first draft of our Advocacy Essay, so my arguments were beginning to take shape, but my solutions were not yet interconnected. The advocacy presentation provided a unique opportunity to communicate with an academic audience verbally instead of on paper. For this reason, I was nervous of a possible miscommunication or being discredited on the spot by my peers. This fear fueled me during the creation of this presentation, and I wanted to make sure I knew what I was talking about. I realized that I am also trying to achieve the same credibility in my academic essays, which eventually benefited me in the drafting process by "raising the stakes" of my Advocacy essay.

Underneath each slide are notes that I referenced to stay on topic during my presentation. Because the presentation was limited to five minutes, I used these notes to communicate information beyond what was written on the slides.

• Today I will be discussing insufficient parental involvement in the American school system and some possible remedies for the causes and effects of the problem.

• I used this picture to introduce the presentation because it can be analyzed in so many ways. The parental pillar's falling is causing instability to the failing schools, and it looks like it's about to fall. The experts are trying to analyze the teachers and principals, but what about the parental pillar? Is it unimportant, or is analyzing the parents and teachers just more interesting for the people?

• To begin, we can look at who is affected and why. One of the first groups i'd like to address is students of a lower socioeconomic status, who are consistently set back by this problem. Their parents are usually busy with multiple jobs and cannot spend as much time or provide the same resources for their children.
• Additionally, school systems and teachers do not efficiently acknowledge the cultures or ethnicity of their students, making parents feel excluded from the school community.
• Some parents lack the skill set to enforce their child's behavior and are weak, and people have nicknamed these parents "laissez faire parents."

• As a result, more pressure is put on school systems and teachers. This usually leads to large-scale reform and rehiring of staff, which doesn't actually address the root of the problem. Insufficient parenting hinders a student because they are at a disadvantage, which can lead to students dropping out. Not only does the student suffer personally, but the work force is less educated and the school systems lose money due to a lower average daily attendance.

• Now, I'd like to propose a few possible solutions. My first proposal is to build one-stop community centers. These are new but have already made appearances in Mayor Bill de Blasio's New York school reform and are even beginning to show up in Ohio. These centers recruit NGOs with state and federal funds to work with parents and students. Some centers even provide health and dental services, which could help parents short on time. They could, in turn, spend more time with their child.

• Another solution is the addition of cultural awareness programs to teachers and schools. These programs would target teachers and schools, training teachers on how to implement a "culturally responsive curriculum", where cultural differences are celebrated and promote student performance. A study at Rice University found that ESL parents are able to be more involved at and students simultaneously gain a better education with more bilingual staff, such as teachers, teaching assistants, and representatives, in schools.

• Finally, I'd like to shed light on the controversial proposal of implementing more charter schools. Charter schools encourage parental involvement, especially in minority families and lower SES neighborhoods. The environment encourages parent involvement, and children are surrounded by more motivated students. The controversy of charter schools lies within their quasi-public school structure, and they undermine the democratic principles of traditional public schools because of their lack of transparency. Some perform well with diversity, while others sink or are exclusive. Because of this, charter schools have not yet shown complete reliability.

 Thank you for your time! Questions?