Monthly Archives: March 2012

This Week’s Parent Teacher Chat On Twitter

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Guest Post by Joe Mazza:

Next #PTchat – 3/21/12 9PM EST / 6 PST

Extreme School Lobby Makeover – Welcome, Honor & Connect Edition

What does your school do to create a trusting and respectful relationships with parents?

Karen Mapp, a leading researcher on family engagement and consultant to the U.S. Department of Education has found that we should be welcoming, honoring and connecting our families. Mapp has found that high-performing, low-income schools welcome, honor, and connect families with what’s happening in class. She calls this “The Joining Process” and found that it creates a school where “everyone feels like members of a family.”

This Wednesday, 3/21/12 #PTchat continues as we take a look at the “welcoming and supportive environments” we have set up in our schools for families. We will share and gather ideas on how to take your school lobby to the next level in terms of welcoming, honoring and connecting. 

For more information, please visit Joe Mazza’s eFACE Today Blog. #PTchat is a weekly chat where parents and teachers around the world come together using the hashtag #PTchat. The goal behind #PTchat is to encourage a transparent and collaborative dialogue between parents and educators. All #PTchats are archived here.

Satire Alert On Parent Engagement

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Last Stand For Children First is a satirical blog poking fun at many of the “school reform” groups out there. There latest post is titled Getting Parent Voices Heard in Education Debate.

One of their recommendations to parents rings just so true, and, unfortunately, not just school reform groups have this perspective:

Attend regular meetings where you can be told what your interests and opinions should be.

And, in an effort that should be satire but is actually true, one of those school reform groups — Democrats For Education Reform — have just formed a new organization in New York. It’s name is Parents Taking Action.

Yes.

It’s publicizing its acronym as “PTA.”

Ed Week Starts New Parent Involvement/Engagement Blog

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Education Week has just begun a blog focusing on parent involvement/engagement issues. K-12 Parents And The Public: How Parents And The Community Are Reshaping Education Policy (Boy, and I thought the blog I write for them had a long title 🙂 ) is written by Michele Molnar.

It’s clearly becoming a “must-read” site for anybody interested in parent involvement/engagement issues.

Parent Trigger Proposal Defeated In Florida

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I’ve previously posted about the parent trigger proposal in the Florida legislature.

Happily, the trigger continues its descent into irrelevancy since the Florida bill was defeated today. Here are a few articles about its defeat:

Why Florida’s parent trigger bill failed in state Senate is by Valerie Strauss at The Washington Post.

Tense fight over ‘school trigger’ bill ends in defeat is from The Tampa Bay Times.

Parent Trigger Bill Fails in Florida Senate is from Ed Week.

Parent Trigger Bill Goes Down in Senate Tie Vote is from The Sunshine State News.

“‘Parent Unions’ Seek to Join Policy Debates”

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‘Parent Unions’ Seek to Join Policy Debates is the headline of an article today in Education Week.

It gives a pretty fair overview of different types of parent groups around the United States and, despite its headline, does not focus exclusively on “parent unions.” Most of these new “unions” tend to be “astroturf” (as opposed to “grassroots”) groups put together and funded by proponents of the parent trigger.

What The “MetLife Survey of the American Teacher” Learned About Parent Engagement

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The annual “MetLife Survey of the American Teacher” was released today. You can read all about it at my main blog, but I thought I’d share an excerpt from their summary that relates to parent involvement/engagement:

And levels of parent engagement have increased:

Levels of engagement between parents and schools have seen marked improvement over past surveys.
Two-thirds of students (64 percent) report that they talk about things that happen at school with their
parents every day, compared to 40 percent who reported speaking with their parents this frequently in
1988, the first time the survey asked this question. There was also a threefold increase in the number of
students who report that their parents visit their school at least once a month – up from 16 percent in 1988
to 46 percent today.

These numbers echo what parents report. Fewer parents now than 25 years ago believe that there is
widespread parental disengagement with their children’s school and education in general. Since the first
time the survey series addressed this issue in 1987, there were significant declines in the proportion of
teachers and parents reporting that most or many parents take too little interest in their children’s
education, fail to motivate their children so they want to learn, or leave their children alone too much after
school.

Virtually all teachers (91 percent) and eight in ten parents (80 percent) believe that their schools help all parents understand what they can do at home to support student success, and 83 percent of students agree that their teachers and parents work together to help them succeed. The survey also found that teachers with high job satisfaction are more likely than those with lower job satisfaction to agree that their schools help parents better understand what they can do to help children learn (95 percent vs. 87 percent).

Louisiana Legislator Wants Law To Grade Parents

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A Louisiana legislator is proposing a law, similar to the failed effort in Florida, that would give parents grades based on their level of school involvement. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Harrison’s House Bill 808 lists six things parents would need to do to receive an “A” rating:

– Help students with homework.

– Provide all the necessary school supplies.

– Making sure students obey rules and are well-disciplined.

– Making sure students meet the dress code.

– Participate in student conferences.

– Make sure students attend class regularly.

Here’s a Florida newspaper’s editorial explaining why this kind of proposal is a bad idea. Here’s a critique from The Educated Reporter. And this is from The Washington Post.

This Week’s Parent Teacher Chat On Twitter

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Guest Post by Joe Mazza:

Upcoming #PTchat on Twitter – 3/7/12 at 9PM EST/6PST

Recently, England’s Education Secretary Michael Gove gave schools the go ahead to reduce the amount of homework they set for pupils after complaints from parents that studies are cutting in to family time.

Alfie Kohn has been one of the leading researchers on the topic of homework. During our hour long chat, we’ll share his findings as well as dig into the most meaningful homework assignments parents and students have experienced. We’ll hear from teachers who are working to balance the research on homework with the policies written by their school districts that mandate those assignments. How are they engaging families in the homework they assign?

Bring your ideas, experiences and insights to support the work of both parents and teachers.

For more information on this week’s #PTchat and archives of past chats, please visit Joe Mazza’s eFACE Today blog.

Upcoming Parent Engagement Webinar

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Late last year, the National Education Association released an important report on parent engagement (you can see my previous post on it — Important Report On Parent Engagement Released Today).

On Thursday, March 29th, Anne Henderson, the author of the report and the top researcher on parent engagement in the U.S., will be leading a free Webinar to discuss it. You can learn more about it here.