More Info On Sept. 15th Ed Week Chat

September 5, 2009 by Larry Ferlazzo

I’ll be a guest on Ed Week’s September 15th “Chat” on parent engagement at 2:00 PM Eastern time.

You can get more information at their site (scroll down to “Upcoming Chats”). This is how they describe it:

Engaging Schools, Engaging Parents: The School-Community Partnership

About This Chat:

At President Barack Obama’s urging, and in response to research showing a connection between parental involvement and student achievement, districts nationwide have launched initiatives to increase community engagement with schools. Yet many schools find it difficult to sustain parent involvement beyond the parent-teacher conference. Join two experts, Joyce L. Epstein and Larry Ferlazzo, for an in-depth discussion on the subject. Ms. Epstein is the main author of “School, Family, and Community Partnerships.” Mr. Ferlazzo co-authored the forthcoming book “Building Parent Engagement In Schools.”

Guests:
Joyce L. Epstein, director, Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships and the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University
Larry Ferlazzo, English and social studies teacher, Luther Burbank High School, Sacramento, Calif.
Mary-Ellen Deily, editorial director, Education Week Press

Parental Involvement Is Equal To Spending $1,000 More Per Student?

September 3, 2009 by Larry Ferlazzo

Last year researchers from the University of Hampshire concluded that:

“Parental effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement.”

You can read the press release about the study here, and you can read the actual study, Parental Effort, School Resources, and Student Achievement.

I have to admit that I’m a bit wary about quantifying parent involvment/engagement in those terms, even though the results certainly support my perspective.

I’d be interested in hearing from others who are more experienced with this kind of research — does the methodology of this study look good?

I’ll Be A Guest On Education Week “Chat”

September 3, 2009 by Larry Ferlazzo

I’ll be a guest on an Internet “chat” that Education Week will be having on parent engagement in schools on September 15th at 2 PM Eastern time. This is a link to their webpage about chats, but it’s not listed on the schedule yet. I’ll share more information about it next week.

Unfortunately, it’s terrible timing for teachers (I certainly had to do quite a bit of juggling to participate), but I think it should be interesting.