Pushing to the front

Janet and Glen Ilacqua carefully dissect homework to see why their kids fell short of an A, pay for leadership and music camps, and crisscross the eastern half of the country on multi-stop college campus tours.

The Easton couple says they never stop hunting for ways to improve their three children's chances of succeeding in school.

''You realize when they're at a young age that good grades aren't enough; you have to help them do more," said Glen Ilacqua, an accountant. ''If you look at the top 25 kids in a class, almost all of them are going to have parents who were very involved in their achievement."

Making sure a student stays above the pack requires more active parenting than ever before, say parents and educators. Waiting lists are growing at the best private schools, public schools now require students to pass a state standardized test to graduate, and graduates of any high school face increasingly intense competition to get into college.

Parents across Massachusetts say they are taking extra measures to get involved in their children's education. Some secure MCAS test questions for review at home or consult a college application coach.

Others, already strapped with demanding jobs and long commutes, squeeze in time to serve on school advisory councils or shell out money for tutors and scholastic summer camps to help their children stay competitive.

''Just keeping your kid afloat requires an overwhelming amount of parental support," said Jane Frantz, whose three sons graduated from Newton North High School, the youngest last month. ''Academically, there's so much more work now. That's driving an increase in how involved parents feel they need to be."

The competitive academic climate also fuels an overzealousness that some school officials say is dangerous for students and their families. One elementary school principal said he has seen a rise during the past three years in the number of parents suspected of doing their child's homework for them, or at least helping more than they should.

At the high school level, schools report a dramatic increase in the number of students taking honors and Advanced Placement courses, but also in how many are spending hours a week with personal tutors to help keep them there. The number of students in Massachusetts taking AP courses, at both public and independent schools, has jumped 52 percent in the past five years, according to the New York-based College Board, which administers AP exams and the Scholastic Assessment Tests.

''We live in such a competitive world that sometimes parents get so nervous about what's going on that they overstep the bounds and get their role mixed up with their kid's role," said Margaret Hannah, a parent educator with WarmLines Parent Resources, a help center for parents in Newton. ''We as parents need to take the reins back; we're creating a lot of the competition."

But for every overzealous parent taking it too far, there are 10 more working hard to strike a balance between support and intrusion, said Glen Ilacqua, the Easton father of three.

''You have to constantly walk the thin line of not stressing your kid out, but also making them realize how important to their future this is," he said. ''The parents who do their [child's] projects for them are just doing them a disservice in the long run."

Joyce Epstein, director of the Center on School, Family and Community Partnerships at John Hopkins University in Baltimore, said many schools don't do enough to let parents know what activities will be most helpful to their child's education. Without that information, parents design their own ways to be involved, some doing too little, others too much, she said.

''Helping your child learn colors, any parent can do that. But when it comes to learning fractions or French, the school has to take the lead and help parents know how to help their children," she said. ''Most of the extreme parenting, like doing homework for the student, comes when there isn't any guidance from the school."

School principals counter that they can only do so much to direct parents. Peggi Lynch, principal of the H.H. Richardson School in Easton, said she encourages parents to communicate any concerns to their child's teacher before it becomes a ''white-knuckle issue."

Epstein, who oversees the National Network of Partnership Schools, aimed at connecting families and schools, said parents too often fall into the trap of simply asking their child how their day at school was. Younger children especially respond better to direct questioning -- for example, asking to see something they wrote that day, Epstein said.

For involved parents, summer isn't time off.

Mary Lewis of Newton said she plans to work on math facts this summer with her 11-year-old daughter in an effort to help prepare for ''the tough year of fourth grade," including her first stint with the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System test.

Easton parents Scott and Joanne Faust are sending two of their sons to College Academy, a scholastic summer enrichment camp at Stonehill College, where they study marine biology, computer Web design, and ancient civilizations.

''We don't make them; they want to go," said Joanne Faust. ''It's academic, but they see it as fun, too. And it will get them a lot farther than sitting around looking at me all summer."

Ted Faust, 12, said the camp has helped him become ''more organized with papers and schoolwork," while his 9-year-old brother, Nathan, said he has improved his computer skills.

Matthew Ilacqua, the oldest child of the Ilacquas of Easton, said he has often accused his parents of getting too involved with his schooling. Now a sophomore at New York University, he says he knows their involvement helped him succeed.

''They would get on my back, always asking about homework and insisting on knowing what my grades were," he said. ''It got annoying, but it probably helped. It kept it on top of my mind."

Like an increasing number of parents, Susan Edwards, who has children in elementary school, middle school, and high school in Pembroke, said she is considering getting a tutor for her oldest daughter, who is entering ninth grade. She said other parents have said her daughter should start an SAT preparation course in the fall, though she won't take the test for more than two years.

Such thinking has helped drive the tutoring and test-prep boom, a $2.5 billion industry growing annually by about 8 percent, according to a spokeswoman for Sylvan Learning Centers, a national company.

Students struggling with math questions on the MCAS, an AP history course, or even their college application essay are getting help from tutors, at a cost of as much as $75 an hour -- an expense parents say they are willing to bear if it helps boost achievement. Even top students get tutors to improve on already high SAT scores or take summer school classes to fit in additional AP or college-level courses during the school year.

But all the tutoring and parental prodding in the world can't overcome the most important element of academic success -- a student's attitude.

''Showing enthusiasm towards school is important, but when parent involvement extends into pushiness, it isn't good," said Kathleen McCartney, a professor and academic dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. ''Ultimately, the child has to own his or her education."