My next book, "The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools, and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners of All Levels," (co-authored by Katie Hull Sypnieski) is now available for pre-order.
It’s getting closer to June, which means summer vacation for many students will be here before we know it. Some schools require summer reading lists to be completed and others do not. Elementary schools and secondary schools oftentimes look very different in terms of the expectations for summer reading.
Does your school provide a summer list for students? Is it differentiated based upon reading level or grade? As parents, do you encourage your children to read over the summer? What are the pros and cons of such a program? What is best for kids?
To discuss these questions and more, join us this Wednesday, May 16th at 9PM EST / 6PM PST as we cover school summer reading programs. Join us parents & educators!
I was looking through the California Department of Education website to see their parent engagement resources, and found that they had “Parent Handbooks” for each class content area. Each one is full of ideas about how parents can help their children learn more in those specific content areas (Language Arts, Social Studies, Science, Math).
It got me thinking — wouldn’t it be nice if there were “Teacher Handbooks For Parent Engagement” for those same content areas that listed ideas on how teachers could involve parents in classroom lessons? I shared a few ideas in my parent engagement book, and have mentioned some in this blog, but not in any kind of systematic way.
So, I’ve got two requests:
1. If you know of any guides that share those kinds of ideas, please let me know.
2. Please leave a comment with any lessons that you’ve done that has included a parent engagement component. I’ll put them all in a list and post them later this summer.
asking the National PTA to adopt recommendations on homework – guidelines that will help educators innovate and improve their approaches to designing and assigning homework in our classrooms.
In June, the National PTA will meet at their annual convention. Join us today in urging the National PTA today—for the first time—to adopt homework guidelines that encourage schools nationwide to reexamine and reimagine homework practices to better support student engagement, health and learning.
the aspirations to do well at school and to aim for advanced education, the sense that one’s own actions can change one’s life, and the giving of value to schooling and school results, referred to as aspirations, locus of control and valuing school.
You can read another summary of the research at “Education and Ambition” over at the Freakonomics blog.
One example of those troubles is their talking for three years about starting a parent academy.
The teachers union decided to take things in their own hands, though, and have just begun their own parent academy. Here’s an excerpt from an article today describing its first session:
…. with workshop titles such as “Parent as Leader,” and “Parent as Lobbyist,” the academy’s main purpose is to motivate parents to advocate on behalf of their children and schools, and demand education policy changes.
About fifty parents—ten from each borough—packed a third-floor conference room at union headquarters for the new academy’s inaugural meeting on Saturday morning….
The morning’s activities were designed to prompt parents to think about and articulate positive qualities of their schools, as well as issues to complain about, from teacher turnover to confusing test policies.
Some of the parents said they signed up for the five week long workshop series because they wanted to fell more included in school- and district-level policy discussions that currently feel out of reach. Others said they also wanted knowledge of how to empower their children to do the same.
#PTchat 5-9-12 – “Parents Ask Mock Interview Questions of New & Experienced Teachers”
Exciting news! This Wednesday, May 9th at *8PM EST, #PTchat will team up with #NTchat (New Teacher Chat) during the one hour chat. Some of our parent participants have already submitted questions they’d like to pose to new and experienced teachers – some having to do with family engagement and some designed to share the perspective from home on what they look for in teachers for their children.
If you are a parent and are interested in submitting a questions to be asked on the chat, please email Joe here. If you are an educator, we invite you to take part in articulating your answers to these questions Wednesday night. Join us for this lively weekly discussion!
Hot on the heels of a survey of British parents, Parenting Magazine and the National Education Association have announced the results of a survey of U.S. parents and teachers.
Parenting magazine and the National Education Association today announced the results of a groundbreaking joint survey* of 1,000 public school parents and educators that explored the roadblocks to effective parent-teacher communication. When parents were asked to “grade” their relationship with their child’s teachers, nearly half (45 percent) gave the teachers an “A,” with the majority on both sides categorizing the relationship as “great” and “open.”
Despite the strong relationships, the survey revealed that the two sides differ on some key issues. Sixty-eight percent of teachers reported difficulty in dealing with parents. A similar percentage of parents–63 percent–reported they’d never had difficulty with teachers. More than one-quarter of parents stated their biggest challenge has been teachers’ perceived lack of understanding for their concerns, while one in three teachers cited parents’ lack of understanding of their child’s issues as their biggest challenge.
Parents believe they are more involved in their children’s education than their own parents were – and that children now have more opportunities in school, suggests a survey.
The survey for the National Association of Head Teachers looked at how parents viewed their children’s schooling.
Almost three quarters believed they were more engaged with their children’s school than the previous generation.
Head teachers’ leader Russell Hobby said the results were “heartening”.
Mr Hobby said the poll of over 1,000 parents in England, Wales and Northern Ireland suggested the schools were “welcoming places”.
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform has produced the film “Parent Power” and is offering a copy of it, along with a “viewers guide” for free, though they are charging $10 for shipping and handling. You can also view it online for free.
Through the voices of parents, this film chronicles fifteen years of effective parent organizing for education reform in New York City – organizing that has stopped budget cuts, increased school funding, and led to the adoption of a citywide lead teacher program. The goal of Parent Power is to provide an example of successful education organizing to urban-based community groups looking for organizational inspiration and practical guidance in their own efforts to support, demand, and sustain equitable reforms in their own public schools. A Viewer’s Guide, designed to enhance community groups’ use of the film in their own education organizing efforts, accompanies the film. One free copy is available for an individual or organization Please note: All orders wil be charged $10 shipping and handling.
The parent trigger has become irrelevant in real life as it suffers defeat after defeat. However, that hasn’t stopped conservative financiers from bankrolling a movie with big stars that portray it as a success.
However, it is imperative that parents become and/or remain involved in their child’s education as he or she transitions into high school.
As parents and teachers, we must create a more seamless family engagement path, a way into and out of high school so families remain engaged throughout their teen’s high school grades.
Join us this Wednesday night (9PM EST / 6PM PST) as parents and educators discuss family engagement strategies geared toward secondary schools. The diverse and global perspectives present during the chat will make for a lively, informative and collaborative discussion. Bring your best ideas and successes as we begin planning for the 2012-2013 school year.
The National PTA is encouraging chapters to endorse a resolution opposing the pervasive influence of high-stakes testing in measuring a school’s or student’s progress.
Parent trigger misfires, again is by Dean Vogel, President of the California Teachers Association, and appeared in the San Bernadino Sun.
Here’s how it ends:
California students, parents, and school communities deserve better than this deeply flawed law and the questionable tactics of a group that is more interested in making national headlines than in helping students. Unless parents are fully informed and involved in a transparent and inclusive reform process, California’s parent trigger will continue to miss the target.
Families play an important role as the primary bridge between the multiple learning settings where their children learn and grow. For this reason, there is an increasing need for expanded learning opportunities (ELOs), including afterschool and other out-of-school time programs, to engage families in more meaningful ways to better support children’s learning and development.
In Families and Expanded Learning Opportunities: Working Together to Support Children’s Learning, the second brief in our series with the National Conference of State Legislatures, we explore the ways that families and ELOs must work as equal partners in order to ensure ELOs are contributing to children’s learning in meaningful ways. These include:
* Understanding children’s learning needs * Ensuring that program goals and activities align with children’s larger learning goals * Facilitating communication with other settings where children learn to better coordinate learning supports (e.g., tutors, books, and other learning materials) * Sharing key data and results regarding children’s learning progress
This brief discusses these elements in more detail, supported by evidence from recent research.
Parent to schools chief: ‘You don’t understand schools’ is an excellent post about the recently announce bizarre restructuring of Philadelphia schools. In the post, parent leader Helen Gym makes some great points. Here’s an excerpt:
You’re not speaking to me with this brand of disaster capitalism that tries to shock a besieged public with unproven, untested, and drastic action couched as “solutions.” You’re not speaking to me when you invoke language like “achievement networks,” “portfolio management,” and “rightsizing” our schools — and say not a word about lower class sizes or increasing the presence of loving support personnel or enriching our curriculum.
“I would say to the President, help me in my work so that more families are involved in their child’s educational experience in order to create stronger communities of learning and excellence for all students,” she said in an email Wednesday. “All parents and families have something to contribute, we just have to be willing to acknowledge that and work towards creating better partnerships so that all children succeed.”
