EDITOR'S NOTE: "What to Do to Improve Our Schools – and Your Child’s Education" is the final in BlackAmericaWeb.com's five-part 50 Years After Little Rock series.

Click here for "Retelling, Revisiting and Reliving the Crisis at Central High."
Click here for "Where are They Now? How the Little Rock Nine Have Fared."
Click here for "Are Efforts to Integrate America’s Schools for Naught?"
Click here for "The Devaluing of Education – and Us – Reflected in Myriad Ways."

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Thousands of black parents, frustrated over a myriad of concerns about the state of public schools across the nation, want solutions to an entrenched and emotional issue: How to improve the quality of education in America’s classrooms.

Fifty years after nine black students broke the color barrier at Little Rock Central High School, black educators, parents, congressional leaders and presidential candidates are grappling with inadequate public school education -- a national problem that will immeasurably impact the lives of generations of black children.

This week, the Little Rock Nine is helping the city observe the 50th anniversary of Central High School's integration with a series of events culminating with a ceremony featuring former President Bill Clinton, who declared the school a historical landmark during his presidency. Central is now the only school in the country designated as a landmark and under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service.

Today, after Supreme Court hearings, PTA meetings, town hall gatherings from coast to coast, black educators and parents are not only asking questions about the perceived failure of public school education, but they are also offering suggestions.

"The primary issue is lack of parental involvement and teaching children to value education, and there is a lack of Work ethic being instilled in the children," Eric Henderson, a sixth-grade teacher at Fort Foote Elementary in Maryland, told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"Essentially, because the children do not need to work outside the classroom, they don't feel that they have to work inside the classroom," Henderson said. "The parents are bombarding them with luxuries such as electronic gadgets without requiring that they earn these luxuries."

In a lengthy investigation by The Washington Post this summer, the newspaper’s series started with this sentence: "Can D.C. schools be fixed?"

"The system is among the highest-spending and worst-performing in the nation," the Post reported. "Tests show that in reading and math, the District's public school students score at the bottom among 11 major city school systems, even when poor children are compared only with other poor children."

"Thirty-three percent of poor fourth-graders across the nation lacked basic skills in math, but in the District, the figure was 62 percent," the newspaper said. "It was 74 percent for D.C. eighth-graders, compared with 49 percent nationally."

"Readers emailed us with more than 100 'top fixes,' demanding that school buildings and technology be upgraded, incompetent and uncertified teachers be fired, and accountability for D.C.'s children be extended to parents, school faculty and central administration immediately," according to the Post.

D.C. Public Schools -- a predominantly black school system -- has a history of problems. Parents have complained for years about crowded classrooms, substandard education, school security and the quality of teachers.

"We have a crisis on our hands," Mayor Adrian Fenty declared on the District’s Web site. "Over the past two decades, study after study has spelled out the same problems and made nearly the same recommendations. My proposal changes one critical piece of the puzzle—increased accountability and action. I am asking for that responsibility to be placed squarely on my shoulders."

But the D.C. school system is not alone. Public schools in large urban areas like Chicago, New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and Baltimore all have many challenges and have been criticized over the years by parents and community groups for failing to properly educate black children.

Some blame teachers.

In D.C., the Post reported: "Citywide, fewer than half of core courses are taught by teachers who are considered 'highly qualified' in their subject, which requires that they have earned a degree or passed a competency test in that subject. In most states, the figure was over 90 percent. Within the District, teachers are less likely to meet this 'highly qualified' standard at schools with poorer students."

Parents like Manuella Rojas-Stevens, a parent of a third grader in Los Angeles, said he feels left out of the educational process.

"I could volunteer at my child’s school and write letters to give my ideas and input to the school district," Rojas-Stevens told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"As a parent, I feel like I don’t know what is going on at the school," she said. "I don’t receive letters about PTA meetings or anything. I don’t even know if they still go on at my child’s school. I have not contacted the school regarding this because as long as my son is happy and safe and has good grades, I’m not going to take that extra step."

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has developed a platform on education reform.

"More than 50 years after Brown v. Board of Education, we still have two school systems that are separate and unequal. Children enrolled in high-poverty schools often do not receive the same opportunities as their peers in more affluent schools," Edwards said on his Web site. "There are nearly 1,000 high schools where more than half of the students won't graduate. Low-income 12th-graders are three years behind their peers, reading at the same level as middle-class ninth-graders."

Edwards’ plan to improve public school education includes investing in teachers; expanding access to pre-school programs; creating a second-chance for high school drop-outs and expanding Head Start programs.

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has listed several educational reforms in her platform: Reforming the No Child Left Behind Act; giving new parents support and training to promote healthy development for their children; increasing access to high-quality early education and helping to create Early Head Start.

Senator Barack Obama (D-IL), who is Clinton’s closest rival for the White House, also offered suggestions to improve America’s educational system: Expand early childhood education; innovation to improve teacher quality; pay teachers more and give more high school students access to rigorous college-level courses.

But while politicians push their plans for improving education, Andrew Woods, a sixth-grade teacher at Fort Foote Elementary in Maryland, said the issue of integration after Little Rock deserves more discussion.

For three weeks in September 1957, Little Rock was the focus of a showdown over integration as Gov. Orval Faubus blocked nine black students from enrolling at a high school with about 2,000 white students. Although the U.S. Supreme Court had declared segregated classrooms unconstitutional in 1954 -- and the Little Rock School Board had voted to integrate -- Faubus said he feared violence if the races mixed in a public school.

"Maybe we need to reevaluate integration because right now, the nation is polarized," Woods told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "Maybe we need to take it a step further and have gender-based schools. This will help because it will remove some of the distractions from our children so the focus can be on academics instead of style of dress on the opposite sex."

A brief survey by BlackAmericaWeb.com with several black parents and teachers from Washington, D.C., to California yielded the following suggestions to improve the quality of education in public schools.

• Parents have to get involved and stay abreast in their child’s academic life, making sure their child is doing all the teacher expects of them.
• Have an open line of communication with the teacher, administration and PTA.
• Be politically active in your school and community. Parents need to know who the decision-makers are, and they need to hold those decision-makers accountable.
• Segregation should be reinstated, they maintain, "because when you look at it, the schools are already segregated," one said.
• Smaller classrooms.
• More consistent student updates from teachers and counselors.
• There should be gender-based schools for grades K-8 because "if you can keep a child focused in school those nine years, their potential would be unlimited," Woods said. "They would be more inclined to excel."

In the Post series, the newspaper reported that "many students and teachers spend their days in an environment hostile to learning. Just over half of teenage students attend schools that meet the District's definition of 'persistently dangerous' because of the number of violent crimes, according to an analysis of school reports."

The problems in D.C. schools are shared by parents across the country who are experiencing similar challenges in public education.

Dana Hood, a parent of a ninth grader and an 11th grader in Los Angeles, has several suggestions for improving schools -- starting at home.

"Parents need to get more involved in their child’s academic life, myself included," Hood told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"In high school, parent teacher conferences aren’t done anymore unless your child is in special education," Hood said. "At the beginning of the year, the school has a Parent Night where parents meet each of their child’s teachers. After that, it’s up to the parent to take the initiative to find out how their child is doing academically."

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Associated Press contributed to this story.