Parents, you are teachers, too BY GRAY DAVIS   With more than 5 million California children back in school, we should bear in mind something George Bernard Shaw once said: ``A child educated only at school is an uneducated one.'' Because the hard truth is, the struggle to improve our public schools will be won as much in the living room as in the classroom. Parental involvement is absolutely key to a child's academic success. That's why I was startled recently to read some shocking figures about parental disengagement in education. In a 10-year study involving 20,000 students and their families, Temple University found that one-third of parents have no idea how their children are doing in school, and another one-sixth really don't care whether their kids earn good grades. Only about one in five consistently attend school programs. When nearly half the parents studied either don't know or don't care how their kids are doing in school, that is a prescription for disaster -- both educational and economic. Study after study has shown that when parents care, students do well. When they don't care, neither do their kids. It's no accident that ``parent'' comes before ``teacher'' in PTA. In fairness, of course, the Cleaver and Nelson families are largely a thing of the past. In a majority of families today, both parents work to make ends meet. More than 60 percent of mothers of school-age kids are in the workforce. Many families are headed by single parentstrying to raise children all by themselves. And here in California, long commutes further diminish the time working parents can devote totheir children. That's why employers -- with government leading the way -- must show flexibility and understanding in accommodating parents' involvement in the education of their children. Most employers voluntarily allow workers who belong to the National Guard or the reserves to take off two weeks a year for training. But it's no less a matter of our national security -- national economic security -- to allow parents the time to participate in their kids' schooling. In 1995, Mattel Incorporated instituted an innovative policy encouraging its employees to take up to 16 hours of paid leave per year to attend and participate in their children's schools. Even employees who don't have children in school are encouraged to use the time to visit schools as speakers or volunteers. This program has been recognized by both the L.A. Chamber of Commerce and Working Mothers magazine. But even with all the difficulties of modern family life, I believe society has a right to expect -- indeed, demand -- that parents face up to the responsibility for their own children. Teachers and principals simply cannot be surrogate parents. Neither can law enforcement officials. And government is least qualified of all to replace parents. Just as we as a society have made it unacceptable to drink and drive, and to smoke in public, so we must make it socially unacceptable for parents to disengage from their children's education. I believe it is time to require parents to sign a contract before their child is admitted to public school each year. The contract would require parents to spend a specified amount of time each school night with their kids and to participate in regular school meetings. Some may say such a compact would be difficult to enforce. But it would at least have the advantage of moral force: reminding parents of their obligations and critical role in the educational process. Many private schools already demand such a parental commitment as a condition of admittance. A good public model is the Accelerated School, the only designated charter school in South-Central Los Angeles. Parents there must execute a parental participation agreement pledging to spend at least three hours a month at the school, in addition to daily time with their children at home. Each month, parents in this poor, inner-city neighborhood log more than 150 hours at the school, and parental involvement in school meetings is approximately 80 percent. The result? A significant rise in student scores, attendance rates that are the envy of other South-Central schools -- and a waiting list of more than 300. Thomas Edison once predicted that the advent of film would render books in the schools obsolete within a decade. He was wrong. Some now make similar predictions about computers. But even if we put a computer on every desk in every classroom in every school in California, it will never supplant parental involvement as the primary factor in educational success. If we are ever to bring California public schools back up to the high standards we can all be proud of -- and that will ensure our continued success economically -- parents must go back to school, too. Gray Davis is lieutenant governor of California.