The Aspen Ideas Festival has been going on in Colorado for the past few days, and its education discussions have certainly been receiving a fair amount of ridicule on Twitter.
Here’s a short segment of a discussion on parent involvement by LA Superintendent Deasy, former NYC Schools Chancellor Klein and Republican Congressman Cantor. They are surprisingly (at least, to me) paternalistic, and Cantor pushes the less-than-useful idea of grading schools as a panacea. .
I just received this from writer and organizer Leigh Dingerson:
I wanted to share a good, new, 4 minute video about the series of town halls that have been held across the country, hosted by community-based groups and teacher union locals. This is a project that was launched last summer by the AFT and a coalition of community organizing groups. The hope is that, through these first-step meetings, organized parents and organized teachers will come together and begin building a common agenda for change. I’ve been to four of the town halls, and I have to say, they’ve been inspiring. There is so much work still to do, so much mistrust to unpeel in some cities. But these events have gotten conversations started. And in some places, we’re already starting to see some collaborative work.
A meeting of host organizations from around the country is coming together for April to think about next steps. The real next steps are always local, of course.
A few years ago, The Parent Teacher Home Visit Project made a great video explaining what it does. I recently discovered that they had put it on the web, and have embedded it below. For what it’s worth, two-thirds of the way through I’m show teaching one of my classes while our vice-principal tells about the home visits I made:
“Organized Parents, Organized Teachers was produced by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform as part of AISR’s ongoing efforts to support community organizing for better schools and collaborative, effective partnerships between community members, parents, and teachers.”
I’ve posted a number of videos related to parent engagement over the years, and I thought that it would be useful to collect the best ones in one post.
Here are my choices for The Best Videos On Parent Engagement:
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform has produced the film “Parent Power” and is offering a copy of it, along with a “viewers guide” for free, though they are charging $10 for shipping and handling. You can also view it online for free.
Through the voices of parents, this film chronicles fifteen years of effective parent organizing for education reform in New York City – organizing that has stopped budget cuts, increased school funding, and led to the adoption of a citywide lead teacher program. The goal of Parent Power is to provide an example of successful education organizing to urban-based community groups looking for organizational inspiration and practical guidance in their own efforts to support, demand, and sustain equitable reforms in their own public schools. A Viewer’s Guide, designed to enhance community groups’ use of the film in their own education organizing efforts, accompanies the film. One free copy is available for an individual or organization Please note: All orders wil be charged $10 shipping and handling.
Here’s a video Mai Xi Lee, one of our school’s Vice-Principals, made about our school’s home visiting project and Parent University. For what it’s worth, that’s me speaking after the text introduction….
The movie “Dangerous Minds” is engaging, 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 visit that shows the importance of telling parents positive news about their children. It’s embedded below:
Here’s a useful video from well-known parent engagement researcher Karen Mapp:
And here’s one from another respected researcher on parent engagement, Anne Henderson:
Alexander Russo this video on his blog. No matter what your position is on Bill Ayers and his work, he does make some interesting comments on parents and the community in this short video.
Alexander Russo shared this video on his blog. No matter what your position is on Bill Ayers and his work, he does make some interesting comments on parents and the community in this short video.
Here’s a video Mai Xi Lee, one of our school’s Vice-Principals, made for last weekend’s national Parent Teacher Home Visit Project conference. For what it’s worth, that’s me speaking after the text introduction….
College Bound is a series of videos — both in English and Spanish — designed to help parents get ideas on how they can support their children academically. Parent have to register at the site in order to watch them, but it only takes a few seconds to do so.
The videos are very accessible, and a few of them seem useful enough for teachers to use them in the classroom with students.
