Every now and then someone says something that really sticks with you. About a year ago, I had a conversation with Harriet Sanford, president and CEO of the NEA Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the huge, nationwide teachers union. The foundation has made Milwaukee a major focus in recent years, giving more than $2 million to Milwaukee Public Schools, generally for developing the skills of teachers in low-performing schools.

Sanford was describing how things were going in other cities where the foundation was involved. She was enthusiastic about the impact in Seattle of a program in which teachers worked to get parents more involved in schools.  It was having documentable positive effects on how kids were doing.

I said that I thought a lot of teachers do what they can in school to meet kids’ needs, but basically throw up their hands when it comes to doing something about kids’ lives at home or motivating parents to do a better job of being allies of their children’s success in school.

Sanford said she was convinced that things could be done, that they didn’t cost a lot, and they could be as simple as having teachers pay visits to children’s homes, just to establish rapport and give some tips on what helps get a kid ready for school.

It may make me sound naive, but this really had an impact on my thinking about teacher-parent relations. I just had kind of written that off. But maybe we don’t need to despair about this, and maybe schools in Milwaukee that have been too passive about reaching out positively and firmly to parents.

All of which is to say I was very pleased to see the Journal Sentinel series this week, “Beyond the Bell: Making the Home-School Connection.”