"Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies for Student Motivation" will be a sequel to "Helping Students Motivate Themselves"
The ESL/ELL Teacher’s Survival Guide
My 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.
He made his position a little bit clearer yesterday in a speech. You can read more about it at Update: Duncan Endorses Parent Trigger — Sort Of (by Alexander Russo), and also be sure to read Jason Flom’s thoughtful comment at that post, too.
I’ve published multiple posts about the parent trigger in Florida — both its defeat last year and its expected success this year. However, instead, it was defeated today.
This week on #PTchat brings something new – a conversation that is both on Twitter and visually hosted on Youtube via Google Hangout. Join us as we facilitate a conversation on how we can appreciate and recognize today’s teachers on a daily basis, as well as share some recent findings from Finland.
Hangout guests will include the #PennFinn13 group who just got back from a inquiry-driven trip to Finland. They will share reflections on how we might learn from how Finland recognizes teachers with trust, respect, and autonomy.
How we can bring teacher appreciation into the heart of our schools and programs?
RSVP here to be a part of this Wednesday night’s LIVE event. Of course, we’ll also use our weekly hashtag #PTchat during the conversation, so follow along the conversations backchannel on Twitter for more ideas and resources, as well as the opportunity to ask questions to LIVE educators on the line.
Join us this Wednesday night at 9PM EDT / 6PM EDT for #PTchat – LIVE via gHangout and on Twitter.
Here are my choices for the best posts I’ve written on parent engagement so far in 2013 (by the way, you can find all my “The Best…” lists related to parent engagement here):
A bill that has a fair amount of support in the Louisiana state legislature would allow charter school parents to petition to have their schools reconnection to their local public school system.
You can learn pretty much everything you need to know about the controversial “parent trigger” legislation now before the Florida Legislature by looking at who is for it and who is against it.
And ends this way:
Here’s the bottom line: If the Florida PTA, the famous Parent Teachers Association, doesn’t support it, can parent trigger really be the parent empowerment bill that supporters claim it is?
There’s a lot between those two excerpts with reading, too….
The Student Voice movement is gaining traction. On April 13th, approximately 200 students and their influential supporters gathered in New York to bring what was once a virtual movement, face to face. (See videos from Student Voice LIVE embedded in this post)
With people attending from across the world and taking part from satellite events in six continents and across the United States, the interest and energy is certainly global.
On this #PTchat, we will discuss the important role that adult stakeholders played at the event and ways that they can advance and are already advancing the movement. Join the conversation on Wednesday, April 24th at 9pm EST/6PM PST, using the #PTchat hashtag.
A year after winning state funding to expand a program aimed at getting parents actively involved in their children’s education, advocates spent Thursday in Springfield fighting to keep it going.
Since 1995, Logan Square Neighborhood Association and the Southwest Organizing Project have run parent mentor programs in their communities. Last year, these organizations and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights won $1 million in the state budget to expand the Parent Mentor Program across the state.
The program is now in 57 schools in ten Chicago communities, Aurora, Bolingbrook, Chicago Ridge, Quad Cities and Skokie. The parent mentor program trains parents on how to work in a classroom, alongside a teacher, and provides them with stipends of $500 per 100-volunteer-hours for their work.
The funding, from Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), is now however at risk due to state budget cuts. Bridget Murphy, an Education Organizer at LSNA said that although they were not included in the governor’s budget proposal, they have a lot of support among state legislators and are working hard to restore and grow parent mentor funding for FY14.
It has apparently now become a program sponsored by West Ed, a school reform/research organization, and they’ve just published an article about it, Parents as Partners in Student Achievement.
Admittedly, all I know about the program is based on the resources I’ve posted about it, but it seems to me to be pretty teacher-time intensive, data-driven, and leading with the “mouth” instead of the “ears.” I would contrast that with other family engagement efforts I’ve written about, including home visits, that tend to be more relationship and listening driven.
Wyoming educators work to get parents involved is a news article describing various efforts that local schools are doing to increase parent involvement (the headline of this post is a quote from the article).
identified three main types of parents, each of which a school must address to have a successful family-involvement program:
• Help seekers: Roughly 19 percent of parents are most concerned with finding out their own children’s academic progress and learning how they can help their students improve.
• School helpers: This 27 percent of parents is the closest to the traditional picture of the “PTA mom and dad.”
• Potential transformers: Finally, 31 percent of parents said they were interested in and ready to be more involved in shaping how the schools operate.
This Wednesday night, 4/17/13 on #PTchat (9PM EDT / 6PM PST) we’re discussing how schools can better engage families of students with special needs with Dr. Scott Roth.
Dr. Roth (@TheHelpTheyNeed) is licensed psychologist and New Jersey certified school psychologist providing psychological and psycho-educational assessment, treatment, and consultation to children, adolescents, and families. He has spent a decade in the public schools working within the special education system while collaborating with parents and supporting students. He is currently the Supervising Clinical Psychologist at a school-based mental health program and maintains a private practice where he evaluates and treats children, adolescents, and families. Dr. Roth has been an expert witness before the Administrative Law Judge of in the state of New Jersey and a court-appointed expert for the Superior Court of New Jersey’s Family Part.
We’re looking forward to a great conversation on how regular ed and special ed teachers, school and parent leaders can engage deeper, families of students with special needs. Please join us Wednesday night for #PTchat.
*New to Twitter chats? Here’s a printable resource from Edutopia for parents and teachers on how to engage in the wealth of free global and transparent conversations happening at any given time.
Fully 58 percent of national education decision makers and influencers sampled in a recent survey believe that states have done a “poor” or “very poor” job at family and community engagement for school turnarounds, according to an Education Insider report released today by Whiteboard Advisors, a Washington, D.C.-based policy‐oriented consulting practice. Only 8 percent said they have done a “good” job.
Every month, Education Insider conducts an anonymous survey of about 50 key education policymakers, thought leaders, and association heads to get their opinions and commentary about education issues. Senior staff from the U.S. Department of Education, White House, Congress, state chiefs, and heads of major associations and think tanks are among those polled about a variety of education topics.
