“Parent Engagement:Strategies for Involving Parents in School Health” is a new report from the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.
There doesn’t seem to be anything new in it, but it’s nice to see an agency like the CDC getting involved in the issue.
Lightening the Load: A Look at Four Ways that Community Schools Can Support Effective Teaching is a new report from The Center For American Progress.
I’ve written a fair number of posts about community schools, which, simply speaking, are schools which provide a lot of community services to the broader community. I obviously think they are a good idea.
But, as I’ve mentioned before, they often — though not always — tend to be framed as the schools doing “to” the parents, instead of working “with” them. I think they might be surprised at the increased level of success if more community schools viewed parents as partners instead of social service clients.
The Flamboyan Foundation has developed a very accessible review of the most current parent engagement/involvement research. It includes some surprising info, particularly around issues related to homework.
They’ve published it in two parts, and the great thing about it is that both are only two pages long!
The first is called Setting the Stage: The Parent Engagement Field.
The second is titled What Kinds Of Parent Engagement Are Most Effective?
I’m adding both to “The Best Research Available On Parent Engagement.”
Thanks to Carrie Rose at the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project for the tip!
The Family Engagement for High School Success Toolkit is a new report from The Harvard Family Research Project and United Way.
It may be worth a look.
Family-School-Community Partnerships 2.0: Collaborative Strategies to Advance Student Learning is the lengthy name of an excellent report released today by the National Education Association.
It highlights sixteen family-school-community partnerships, including the Parent Teacher Home Visit Project.
Here are important links:
You can access the entire report here.
Here’s an overview of the report.
And here’s some commentary on it from Learning First.
I’m adding it to The Best Overviews Of Parent Engagement.
The Handbook on Family and Community Engagement is a new book that can be downloaded free. It’s been put together by Academic Development Institute and the Center on Innovation & Improvement and looks very impressive. You can read more about it here.
I’m adding it to The Best Overviews Of Parent Engagement.
Families As Partners: Fostering Family Engagement for Healthy and Successful Students is a report from the National School Boards Association.
It provides information on helping families connect with schools around wellness issues.
School-family partnership strategies to enhance children’s social, emotional, and academic growth is the very long name of a useful report from the Collaborative For Academic, Social and Emotional Learning.
It’s worth a look…
The Center For Public Education just released a short report titled Back to school: How parent involvement affects student achievement.
There doesn’t appear to be anything new in it, but it seems to be a decent summary of research that has been done.
You can also read a Reno newspaper article that relates what the report says to local School District efforts.
“The Roles Of Parent & Community Engagement In Student Success: Work Works In Illinois” is a new report published by advocates of Community Schools.
Even though it’s focused on Illinois, a lot of the info can be applied anywhere.
Working Systemically in Action: Engaging Family & Community is a new book from SEDL, a leader in parent engagement research.
You can purchase a hard copy, or you can get a free PDF of it by going to the link. It’s worth a look.
Teaching the Teachers: Preparing Educators to Engage Families for Student Achievement is a new report from the Harvard Family Research Project and the National PTA on how teacher education programs can better prepare teachers for family engagement.
This is how they describe the report:
Teaching the Teachers highlights those promising strategies through five case studies, and examines how teacher education programs can create the foundation for meaningful and effective family engagement. This brief describes five core elements necessary for a system of teacher training and professional development in support of family engagement, distilled from the case studies of existing teacher preparation programs. The brief also addresses the policies needed to support this type of teacher preparation system. The five core elements in the system are:
•Standards for family engagement
•Curriculum that advances the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that teachers need to engage families
•Collaborations among various stakeholders
•Continuing professional development around family engagement
•Evaluation for learning and continuous improvement
A Unique Opportunity to Improve School Meals Applications is a report from The Center On Budget and Policy Priorities.
It makes some good suggestions about simplifying the applications parents have to complete so their children can get free or reduced meals at school.
Thanks to the Education Research Report for the tip.
” Parent Involvement and Extended Learning Activities in School Improvement Plans in the Midwest Region” is the title of a new study examining 1,400 school improvement plans in five Midwest Region states.
You can also read more about it at Education Research Report.
“Title I and Parent Involvement: Lessons from the Past, Recommendations for the Future” is a new report written by Karen Mapp, one of the authors of the influential parent involvement book, Beyond The Bake Sale.
It has a lot of useful information.
Maybe This Is Why Attacking Teachers Is So Popular…And Why It’s So Important To Speak Positively About Our Students is the title of a post I’ve recently written at my other blog.
It talks about a new study that I think points out why we need to speak positively to parents about their kids.
I’ve previously posted about the recent Associated Press poll on education (see “Adults blame parents for education problems” (Interesting Poll, But Can We Stop The Blame Game?).
Here’s an interactive visualization of results to the entire poll.
I’ve previously posted about the School Community Journal, an academic journal focusing on school/community connections that comes out twice a year
The newest issue has just been published, and it might be worth a look.
Report Advises Schools on How to Relate to Minority Parents is a post from Mary Ann Zehr at Ed Week’s Learning The Language blog.
The report has just been published by the National Education Association and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and is definitely worth a look. Mary Ann’s post has all the needed links.
Beyond Random Acts: Family, School, and Community Engagement as an Integral Part of Education Reform is a new report issued by the Harvard Family Research Project.
This is how they describe it:
Beyond Random Acts provides a research-based framing of family engagement; examines the policy levers that can drive change in promoting systemic family, school, and community engagement; and focuses on data systems as a powerful tool to engage families for twenty-first century student learning. Because education reform will succeed only when all students are prepared for the demands of the twenty-first century, the paper also examines the role of families in transforming low-performing schools.