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Natural EnemiesHow to improve the dreaded parent-teacher conference.

By Emily Bazelon
Posted Thursday, Feb. 8, 2007, at 6:55 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Mostly, though, parent-teacher conferences probably haven't changed to include kids because schools don't change much. The calendar, the length of the day, the basic units of instruction—none of it has been radically altered for generations, whatever the latest instructional trend. Making it a criminal offense to miss a conference would, of course, be a big change. Instead of putting one more ounce of energy into a law that would harm poor and immigrant parents, we could consider another way to shake up an old staid system that would actually improve it for everyone.

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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor.
Illustration by Robert Neubecker.
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