Education must be thought of as a comprehensive program that includes students, parents, teachers, support personnel, and community members. Parental involvement in education is a necessary component for the success of all children. More often in the African American community, students tend to lag behind their white counterparts (National Urban League, 2006; Barbarian and McCandies, 2003). Several factors are to blame for this subsector of the American community that is not in line with the educational standards that is needed to compete globally. The family unit with parental education involvement or lack thereof is a factor that must be addressed and treated as a familial disease process. The need for parental involvement and mentoring of our children is reaching a critical point as many parents have retreated from their child's education for a variety of reasons (Casper, Lopez, and Wolos, 2006). Consider the statement that many American mothers spend on an average of less than 30 minutes a day explaining or reading with their children, and fathers spend less than 15 minutes interacting with their children (Barnes, Bryson, and Smith, 2006). Unfortunately, due to the lack of parental involvement, many urban schools have shifted most of the responsibility of educating our children to hands of the classroom teacher. This alone will not address all of the academic needs of all children. This research will explore the extent of parental involvement, the barriers that prevent or hinder the desire of the parents to be involved, suggested solutions to resolve this epidemic, and its implication on the academic achievement of students as it relates to performance on standardized tests.