Part of that comic is referring to the parent but I think a great deal of it actually refers to the way teachers are treated. They are treated like garbage by parents and administrators alike. They don't get to make any decisions in the classroom, and they are screamed at or fired if anything goes wrong. Parent involvement is actually the root cause of this crisis: the wrong kind of parent involvement however, the parent who thinks the teacher is an idiot and goes into school to "set him/her straight". That's in fact what's happening in the comic.

Parental involvement is the number one factor for student achievement. Followed by socio-economic stuff, like food, household income, zip code.

Make a ranked list of factors and teacher competency isn't even in the top ten. Which makes all this school reform chatter drive me nuts.