In recent days, newspapers have expressed amazement at how calmly the school year began. With reform of the system, a new chancellor, and the teacher’s contract settled, thinks look pretty good, they wrote.

While we are certainly entitled to revel in optimism, this is a moment that illustrates the danger of an all-encompassing emphasis on governance reform.

Our school system has witnessed significant reform in the past. Each time, these rearrangements of governance were supposed to change our schools as we knew them. Many thought their work was done when the ink was dry. The result? Our schools continued to struggle and we learned the painful lesson that changed flow charts don’t automatically improve the quality of the teaching force, re-engage communities, or rectify the legacy of underfunding. If Mayor Bloomberg wants to improve public education, he will have to realize that, like the raising of children, it will take the entire city to improve the quality of our public schools.

Mr. Bloomberg’s first step should be to reach out to his former colleagues in the private sector who spent a significant amount of energy pushing for mayoral control. They’ve got it. Now what? Corporations, more than anyone else, understand the need for successful schools. Without them, they cannot recruit employees from our city or convince workers with school-age children to move here. That’s why the private sector should use the political capital that helped make mayoral control a reality to pressure a state government that is satisfied with the Appellate Court ruling that it is obligated to provide only an eighth grade education. The private sector requires more of their employees, and certainly for their own children, and they should put their power as taxpayers behind demanding that the state provide more. How about a public service campaign sponsored by CEOs that explains to the governor and legislature that it’s good business for the state to invest in schools?

Mr. Bloomberg will also need help to address the crisis in parental involvement, currently at epidemic proportions. It won’t be address simply through Chancellor Klein meeting with a few parents. Mr. Bloomberg needs to lead a citywide effort to encourage parents to get involved in their children’s education. He should offer city employees time off to attend parent-teacher conferences without penalty, and work with private sector leaders to offer the same to their employees. He should reach out to faith leaders to preach the importance of parental involvement at each and every sermon. As a former student member on the institution formally known as the Board of Education, I remember seeing the clergy organize their congregants only when the topic was controversial. Parental involvement isn’t a sexy notion, but the lack of it is hurting thousands of children, and communities of faith must consider it their mission to address it.

It’s great to feel like change is possible. And the hope for transforming our public school system is real – but only if all sectors of New York City life engage more than ever before. The work isn’t done when the legislation passes. In fact, that’s when it’s really just begun.

Ms. Schlesinger is the chief policy analyst of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy.

Executive Director of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy