Facilitate Parental Involvement: Ask Questions

Recently I read Daniel Pink's new book, To Sell is Human. Pink writes extensively about how individuals in the Education and Medical professions sell everyday by motivating people to take action that benefits them or others. He argues that asking questions is a the most efficient method to achieve a purchase than presenting the benefits. As I read the book I continued to reflect how transition assessment is much more than the data put on the Individual Education Plan. The process can facilitate parental involvement when initiated by the teacher. But can parent involvement be initiated by the parent? What if parents completed assessments and shared them with teachers and other service providers? Daniel Pink discusses that in todays world the seller does not have an advantage over the buyer when purchasing a product due to the availability of information. For example, when one purchases a car they can search the prices and consumer reports and have as much information as the car dealer. But does this equality of information exists in the area of special education? One could argue that many times the parent has more information than the service provider. Another argument could be advanced that neither service provider or parent has all the information needed. Parent Based Transition Assessments is a list of 42 assessments that allow the information from the assessments to be sent to multiple emails.