Ridiculous British Policy Of Punishing Parents For Student Vacations Continues — 64,000 Fines Issued

I’ve previously published a number of posts about the ridiculous British policy of punishing parents for taking their students on vacation during the school year. Here are two new resources: Number of parents fined for term-time holidays soars by 70 per cent is from The Telegraph. School holiday fines in England ‘unfair’, say parents is […]

April’s (2023) Useful Parent Engagement Resources – Part One

Virginia school district parents practice calm communication on culture war issues is from NPR. Not all social media use is bad, but it often gives us the "empty calories of social interaction," instead of the healthy ingredients we need. @NPRCoryTurner @cohennichttps://t.co/AaHfvWV9Z5 — MindShift (@MindShiftKQED) March 25, 2023 How can we help young children learning to […]

I’m Not Sure That Britain’s Policy Of Fining Parents For Student Tardiness Will Really Solve The Problem

Schools in Britain have instituted a policy of fining parents (and it’s a hefty one) when students are late for school. I’m not sure that this type of punishment is really going to solve the problem. And since it appears the fines are being ignored, you’d think school leaders there would figure that out instead […]

Nice Wash. Post Article on Teachers Visiting Families, But Terrible Headline

Students won’t learn? Go visit their parents. is the terrible headline of a decent article in The Washington Post about teachers visiting families. As the article points out, the purpose of the visits is to build positive relationships with families, not to punish students. I’m still adding the article to The Best Resources For Learning […]

“Busting parents won’t stop cyberbullies, experts say”

Busting parents won’t stop cyberbullies, experts say is from NBC News. Here’s an excerpt I particularly liked: Tragedies like Sedwick’s suicide can spark the hunt for a scapegoat, but prosecuting parents isn’t the solution, says Sameer Hinduja, a criminal justice professor at Florida Atlantic University and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. “Legislators and politicians […]

Another Reason Why We Need To Be Careful How We Speak To Parents About Their Children

Steve Constantino sent out a tweet about a very interesting study titled The effects of parental involvement on students’ academic self-efficacy, engagement and intrinsic motivation. Basically, it find that making calls home to parents when there are problems with the child at school generally leads to negative parent/child interactions. These, in turn, typically result in […]

The Worst Parent Engagement Ideas

I’ve posted a lot about good parent engagement/involvement ideas, but sometimes you can learn just as much from looking at bad examples. You can see lots of good ideas at all my parent engagement-related “The Best” lists here. Here are my choices for The Worst Parent Engagement Ideas: Putting Parents in Charge is a condescending […]

“Failing” Parents

The New York Times has just published an article on recent efforts by not-particularly-enlightened legislators to “help” students learn by punishing their parents. It’s titled Whose Failing Grade Is It? Here’s a Diane Ravitch quote from the article: That is not surprising, said Diane Ravitch, an education historian and the author of “The Death and […]

Rahm Emanuel’s “Transactional” Perspective On Parent Involvement/Engagement

As most readers know, Rahm Emanuel is favored to become the next Mayor of Chicago, where there is mayoral control of public schools. In his response to the question “Please explain how you would encourage more parental involvement in the public schools. Do you support tying parental involvement to school funding or what schools should […]

What Is With All These Proposed Punitive Measures Against Parents?

Yesterday, I posted about a Florida legislator’s proposal to have teachers grade parents. Late last year, I wrote about a Michigan prosecutors plan to jail parents who didn’t attend parent-teacher conferences. Now, an Indiana legislator wants parents to perform community service if their child misbehaves in school, apparently targeting instances of bullying. I’ll admit that […]