I’ve just watched the movie “Dangerous Minds” (I might have been one of the few teachers out there who hadn’t seen it earlier). It’s an engaging movie, but it’s one in a long line of nauseatingly paternalistic hero teacher films out there. However, it does have a great two minute clip of a teacher home [...]
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A new study recently was published that, while there doesn’t seem to be anything new in it, it does reinforce the important of parent involvement/engagement. Science Daily writes about it in a piece titled “Home, Preschool and School Coordination Boosts Achievement.” Here are are some excerpts from the article: Children whose minds are stimulated in [...]
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City OKs Layoffs Of High School Parent Coordinators is the title of a New York City online video and article that appeared today. Here’s how it begins: Testifying before the City Council Monday, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said he will allow school principals to lay off parent coordinators and abolish the position as a way [...]
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There was a 2010 Parent Leadership Conference in southern California in late February. They posted handouts from several workshops online that people might find useful.
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I’ve posted previously about the proposed increase in federal funds for parent involvement. You can read more details and analysis about it in this article, which also includes links to additional parent involvement/engagement efforts.
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The National Association of State Boards of Education has a page called “Family Engagement” on their website. It has links to a number of good resources, and might be worth a look.
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Carrie Rose, Executive Director of the nationally-recognized Parent Teacher Home Visit Project, recently attended a National Education Association-sponsored conference in Tennessee about parent engagement/involvement. You can read more about it in my previous post, “Union-Led Conference Targets Family Engagement in Schools.” You can also read an interview I did with Carrie last month. Carrie was [...]
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The May newsletter of the Family Involvement Network of Educators (FINE) from the Harvard Family Research Project has just been published. Here is how they describe it: With the introduction of the Department of Education Investing in Innovation Fund (i3), innovation has emerged as a hot topic in education. In this issue of the FINE [...]
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(Cross-posted at my other blog) Private foundations have supported a lot of good work over the years. And many supported the community organizing that I did during my twenty-year organizing career. I often felt frustrated, however, by how most (though not all) foundations who sought public policy change would decide that they knew what the [...]
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Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) is a Chicago organization that has lots of useful resources on its website. Here is how it describes itself: Parents United for Responsible Education (PURE) exists to build support for and enhance the quality of public education in the city of Chicago by informing parents about educational issues, bringing [...]
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“Principal’s e-mail draws attention to parent-school relations” is the title of an article in the Miami Herald today. The headline of this post is a quote from that article. The piece begins by talking about a way not to encourage parent involvement/engagement — a principal wrote an email to a parent saying she should “Eat [...]
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I’ve written about efforts by the Obama Administration to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone. The Department of Education is now seeking peer reviewers for grant applications by groups who want to create these “Promise Neighborhoods.”
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The Maryland State Parental Information Resource Center (PIRC) has a very good website with lots of resources for teachers, administrators and parents. It’s definitely worth a visit.
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School to Parents: Volunteer or Else! is the title of a post on one of the New York Times’ blogs. It’s about a school district in San Jose that is planning to require 30 volunteer hours a year from each of their 13,000 students (88% of which are poor, according the the article). Now, that’s [...]
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Renee Moore, a talented teacher in the Mississippi Delta (who I will be interviewing in my other blog next month) has just published an excellent post titled “Get Real About Parental Accountability.” It’s a post that all teachers might want to read.
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The Boston Globe today has what I think is a pretty scary article today titled “Class difference: Poor neighborhoods around the world embrace a surprising idea: incredibly low-priced private schools.” It’s about the privatization of education in developing countries. The article includes a short paragraph pointing out the dangers of this happening: For critics, though, [...]
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“Put the Parent Voice back in Public Education!” is a letter hosted by Change.org where parents can sign and communicate their unhappiness with the Obama administration’s school “reform” efforts, including their lack of making parent engagement a priority. I like what the letter says. However, during my twenty-year community organizing career, we always looked at [...]
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The Family Engagement In Education Act was introduced in Congress today. The bill, championed by the National PTA would: provide incentives to districts and schools to implement best practices, such as parent leadership academies, placing family engagement coordinators in schools, and professional development for educators on how to partner with families. The Family Engagement in [...]
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Yesterday, I posted a link to the video of Secretary Duncan’s recent speech on family involvement in schools. The transcript of the speech was just made available online. I continue to be less-than-impressed….
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Education Secretary Duncan just gave a speech on family involvement in schools which you can watch and hear at the Department of Education’s blog. I was less than impressed. He did say the administration wanted to double the spending requirement on parent involvement activities from one percent to two percent of Title 1 monies, but [...]
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