While parent education has become popular among educators and reformers, the long-term implications of the emphasis on parent education deserve careful and dispassionate examination. Are exclusively center-based developmental programs for preschool children to be discredited? Should federally-sponsored intervention programs insist on parent participation? If so, what specific form should parent participation assume? To answer these and similar questions about parent education, a group of academicians and educators at the University of North Carolina -- all with extensive backgrounds in various aspects of parent education -- proposed to sponsor a conference of leading scholars and practitioners with expertise in the areas of parent education, preschool intervention, and social policy decision-making. The purpose of this report is to summarize the 1980 conference on "Parent Education and Public Policy." The report is divided into six sections: (1) background of the conference; (2) conference proceedings; (3) policy recommendations from conference work groups; (4) themes emerging from the conference; (5) outline of a book that will result from the conference; and (6) reflections on planning and conducting conferences addressed to issues of public policy. The conference program and an example of guidelines for preparing conference reports are appended. (Author/RH)