Having been a governor of our local infant school for 5 years back in the noughties (not as a parent governor, though both my daughters had attended the school in the past) two of the interesting things I noticed are that we struggled to get parents to volunteer for the role iin the first place, and often, when they did volunteer, they were often fixated on the aspects of the school that their child interacted with, to the exclusion of other issues. Yes, having them can be a good idea, but I'm not sure that they are always a good idea.
In a sense, the 'contempt' is sometimes on the part of a parent governor as they aren't really interested in the wider picture.
On the main point, the thread title isn't correct. The change allows schools to choose whether or not to have parent governors, it doesn't abolish them.
But it does worry me if a school has no democratically elected parents on the governing body - there is a risk that a completely cosy relationship develops whereby the governing body is entirely made up of people either selected by the Head (community governors) or line managed by the Head (teacher governors). This isn't appropriate in my view as the Head needs to be accountable to the governing body, rather than the governing body being a group of 'yes' men and women for the Head.
I do, however, recognise that in some places it is very difficult to get people to stand and to ensure that those who do stand and are elected take the role and their responsibilities seriously. I am fortunate that the schools my kids go to there is a highly engaged parental body and the election of governors is a pretty serious process. I am, myself a parent governor, and when I was elected in 2014 there were 6 highly credible candidates for 3 vacancies. Today is the closing date for a further round of elections, with 5 excellent candidates for 2 vacancies.
Fortunately too, I don't recognise Hope's characterisation of parent governors as only interested in the narrow aspects of the school that directly affected their own child. None of the parent governors on my governing body are like that - they are absolutely focussed on the full role. Indeed of the three groups of governors (parent, community and teacher) the parent governors are probably the most effective in the role. By contrast I struggle with many of the teacher governors, who turn up to meetings but contribute very little.
