I’ve written several times why I think the so-called “parent trigger” (which, here in California, lets fifty-one percent of parents of school-age children in a schooI’ve written several times about l’s attendance area sign a petition to trigger a school overhaul or takeover by a charter.
Now, Alexander Russo reports that an effort is underway to do the same thing in Connecticut. Read his post, Parent “Trigger” Moving East, to learn more.
In a “Hall of Fame” worthy example of how NOT to encourage parent involvement/engagement, the Charlotte Observer reports that a school secretary was fired for continuing to translate for parents who couldn’t speak English after a new principal banned her from doing so.
The school in question is 42% Latino, and its motto is “Academy of Cultural and Academic Diversity.”
The secretary, Ana Ligia Mateo, complained to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which ruled in June that there is “reasonable cause” to believe her civil rights were violated.
She is now suing the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
From what I can see, the caliber of work by PIRC’s around the country is pretty mixed. But, nevertheless, they are an important resource that should be continued.
I make a point of writing posts about how parent engagement/involvement is looked at and implemented in countries other than the United States. You can see previous posts in the “Countries Other Than the U.S.” category here.
Last week, the South Carolina Lt. Governor made some ridiculous comments about denying low-income parents government aid if they don’t attend PTA meetings. He went on to compare poor people to “stray animals” that will breed if they are fed.
The Bibb County school district in Georgia had 500 people just attend a Winter Parent Engagement Conference, and you can view a local television report on it.
It sounds impressive. They apparently put it on as part of their involvement in a parent involvement campaign called “Be There,” which I have written about critically in the past.
I continue to have those concerns but, assuming that this conference is not just a “one shot wonder” in Bibb County and is reflective of an ongoing commitment, it appears that — at least there — they’re giving parent engagement more than just lip service.
Teaching Tolerance is a well-known website and organization that provides excellent resources to teachers for promoting justice and equality in schools.
They also have a nice Family Engagement page that has a number of good resources that are worth a visit.
Groups that want to run up to thirty schools in Los Angeles have begun making their presentations to the Los Angeles School Board.
The Mayor’s organization, Partnership For Los Angeles Schools, now runs twelve schools and is competing for some of the schools that are “up for bid.” According to the Los Angeles Times, they claimed increased parent involvement at their present schools:
…. citing “15,000 discrete incidents of parent involvement,” such as parent visits to a school, as well as new flat-screen TVs in the refurbished parent centers.
There may very well be a lot of parent involvement/engagement at their schools, but I have to wonder what metrics they use to identify 15,000 examples. And, come on, citing new flat-screen TV’s?
I know that newspapers don’t necessarily accurately report everything, but it would have been nice to hear a few more specifics about what they consider parent involvement/engagement. I couldn’t find much on their website.
I do hope, though, that they don’t cite flat screen TV’s again….
I posted yesterday about the South Carolina Lt. Governor’s idea to have benefits such as food aid yanked from families if they didn’t attend PTA meetings.
Mr. Layman in South Carolina sent me a link to a column their local paper published that I thought was incredibly thoughtful and insightful. It was written by a local professor and was titled Bauer’s comments reflect our own misconceptions.
It does a great job of looking at how schools often work in low-income communities.
i’ve written several times about the Family Literacy Project we have at Luther Burbank High School where we provide computers and home Internet access to immigrant families. They, in turn, use them to develop English skills. Student assessment results have been so impressive that the project was the Grand Prize Winner of the International Reading Association’s Presidential Award on Reading and Technology.
The second class just graduated with equally impressive results. The parents’ English initial assessments averaged 54.4%, while their final average was 82.4%. The initial technology assessments averaged 38.8% and the final assessment averaged 94.4% (by the way, the philosophy of the Mutual Housing Association’s workshop was very similar to Burbank’s philosophy — neither one of us believe in teaching to the test).
A book has just come out highlighting what the author researchers say are the five “essential supports” to school success. You can read details about it at in a post on my other blog — “Five Essential Supports For School Success.”
Parent-community ties: This support refers to whether schools are a welcoming place for parents and whether there are strong connections between the school and local institutions. Schools with strong parent involvement were 10 times more likely to improve in math and four times more likely to improve in reading than schools weak on this measure.
Instead of looking for positive ways to encourage parents connecting with schools, South Carolina Lieutenant Governor (and gubernatorial candidate) Andre Bauer, thinks that poor families should have their government benefits cut-off if they don’t go to to PTA meetings.
Why, you might ask?
Lt. Gov. Bauer explains:
“My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that. And so what you’ve got to do is you’ve got to curtail that type of behavior. They don’t know any better.”
The excellent blog Public School Insights has a nice summary of everything that the Prince George’s County’s school district (Maryland) is doing to connect with parents.
According to the United States Department Of Agriculture, only 48% of Californians who are eligible for food stamps actually got them last year.
The California Budget Project recently released a report called FOOD WITHIN REACH: Strategies For Increasing Participation In The Food Stamp Program In California. The report’s recommendations don’t include schools working more closely with county and state agencies on outreach to families, such a strategy could be one way schools could connect better with parents, respond to a direct family self-interest, and help ensure students don’t come to school hungry (or, at least, less hungry).
Other states also have large numbers of qualified people not participating, so such a strategy would not have to be limited to California.
A school in Norfolk, Virginia, after hearing from parents saying they wanted to study for their GED, began a GED program. You can read about it in this newspaper article titled Norfolk school caters to parents who want GEDs.
If schools use their ears and listen more than using their mouths for talking, they might be surprised at the increased level of parent engagement.
It doesn’t shy away from making what seems to me to often be valid complaints about New York schools. They certainly have a challenge in getting their voices heard. I’ve already posted about what NY Mayor Bloomberg thinks is the role of parents:
parents need only be involved in the micro issues of their child’s education, like the child’s attendance, behavior and grades. It does not make sense for parents to be involved in larger issues
The Baltimore School District recently put on hold a parent involvement effort that would have required students to assess how each students is performing in 100 (yes, 100 different ways). According to the Baltimore Sun, “o help teachers communicate better with parents about how their kids are doing in the classroom.”
“There ought to be easier ways to facilitate communication between teachers and parents than filtering them through 100 jargon-filled data points. After all, what most parents really want is a dialogue…”
According to the newsletter, Mr. Ritsch highlighted five parent involvement efforts — three related to charter-school operator Green Dot; Mastery Charter Schools in Pennsylvania, and the Academy for Urban School Leadership (AUSL) in Chicago. There is a common denominator among all of these schools,
In all five, either the school operators are able to pick-and-choose their students and/or they can basically change the entire school faculty (not to mention being the recipients of large amounts of private dollars in addition to public financial support)
Come on! Instead of pushing this kind of blatantly political agenda, perhaps the Department of Education can highlight the many non-charter schools around the country making home visits and working with the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project. Or how about the many non-charter schools working with parents and broad-based community organizing groups like the Industrial Areas Foundation to improve neighborhood communities. Many of those examples are highlighted in our book, Building Parent Engagement In Schools.
Luther Burbank High School, where I teach, is doing home visits, has a parent academy that is a national model, and operates a family literacy project that was recognized by the International Reading Association as the best example in the world of using technology to teach reading.
I’m not saying some charter schools aren’t doing good work engaging parents. But it seems to me that since many schools in the U.S. are facing some additional challenges — over and above the ones faced by the institutions the Assistant Secretary cited — it might be a good idea to make a point of checking out, and talking about, their successes, too.
