A new report by LFA and Grunwald Associates, with support from AT&T, examines how parents perceive the value of mobile devices, how they see their children using mobiles, and what they think of the possibilities for mobile learning.
Family Involvement
Blog Entries
Today the Learning First Alliance (LFA) and Grunwald Associates, with the support of AT&T, are releasing a report, Living and Learning with Mobile Devices, that documents survey results of parents’ attitudes and perceptions of the value of mobile devices as learning tools for their school-aged children. Not surprisingly, parent perceptions are influenced by the level of personal usage they have with mobile technology and, as parental usage goes up, comfort level with the notion of their children’s use of this technology also increases.
The report is an important reflection of just how far we’ve come in the use of and advocacy for appropriate use of technology in schools and classrooms. As someone who has spent the past 25 years advocating for innovation in teaching and learning supported with technology and expanded connectivity, my view is that we’re at an important crossroads in transforming both the formal and informal learning spaces with new, less expensive, and more powerful technical devices. As the survey found, more than 50 percent of high school students take a cell phone to school with them every day, and 24 percent of those surveyed use those cell phones in ...
By Rich Bagin, APR, Executive Director of the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA)
Years ago the National School Public Relations Association (NSPRA) offered a guidebook entitled Making and Marketing Your School as a School of Choice. This was even before the charter movement, open enrollment, vouchers, and the home schooling surge began nibbling at the enrollment of our public schools.
Even then, principals and superintendents saw the need to better identify and define the attributes of their schools. They realized that it was their job to make sure parents knew and understood the benefits and values that their schools could provide for their children and communities. They also realized it was their job to collaborate with parents groups and others to assess their strengths and weaknesses and then set an action plan to improve those areas that needed more attention. By coming together, they realized how their schools were working to improve and why the collaborative climate made their schools a school of choice in ...
The first step in creating a culture of change and innovation is stakeholder buy-in. In education, we often recognize the importance of teacher and student buy-in, but we forget about another critical stakeholder: The community, particularly parents.
What is the best way to get community buy-in for an education initiative? Communication. By communicating directly and honestly, educators can avoid community fears that can ultimately derail efforts to implement new teaching and learning practices.
I recently attended the National Association of Secondary School Principals’ (NASSP) annual conference, where I learned from many principals who have created cultures of innovation. I was particularly impressed by the 2013 NASSP Digital Principals – Dwight Carter (Gahanna Lincoln High School, Gahanna, OH), Ryan Imbriale* (Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts, Baltimore, MD), and Carrie Jackson (Timberview Middle School, Fort Worth, TX). ...
A new study that tracks the long-term effects of bullying suggests that intervention efforts are well worth attention and investment. While some consider bullying to be a rite of passage - it is certainly a common occurrence – the behavior adversely affects student learning and can account for higher rates of absenteeism. Nationally, 160,000 students miss school on a daily basis due to a fear of being bullied or attacked. ...
The Commission on Equity and Excellence had a Congressional mandate to provide advice to Secretary Duncan on the disparities in meaningful educational opportunities and to recommend ways in which federal policies can address such disparities. They just released a report titled “For Each and Every Child,” after a two year work period. The distinguished members of the panel, with diverse professional backgrounds and different political ideologies, focused on the inequality in our nation’s public school system as the primary driver behind two achievement gaps, the internal domestic gap and the international gap. Their conclusions and recommendations won’t surprise education professionals, but the report serves as a well-timed call to action for the struggles facing African American students, particularly males, during Black History Month. The opportunity gap also exists for a significant number of Hispanic and Native American students. ...
By Anne Foster, Executive Director of Parents for Public Schools
Editor’s Note: Our guest blogger today is Anne Foster, the Executive Director of Parents for Public Schools. Her email address is afoster@parents4publicschools.org. To learn more about Parents for Public Schools and the PPS PEP curriculum, go to www.PPSparentprograms.com.
In Texas, parents are talking about what many consider excessive, high-stakes testing. In California, parents are advocating for better funding for the state’s public schools. And in Mississippi, they are taking part in debates about charter schools and letting their legislators know their opinions on charter schools. Parents who currently have children in public schools have the shortest window of time for schools to be successful. They only get one chance to educate their children, so time is of the essence to them. With the right skills and knowledge, parents can be powerful and effective public education advocates and can work in a strong partnership with their children’s schools. ...
Parent and family engagement is a critical component in ensuring student achievement and success in school. However, traditional models of parent-teacher interaction (for example, conventional parent-teacher conferences) do not necessarily have a substantial effect on student performance.
Dr. Maria C. Paredes, a Senior Program Associate at WestEd, noticed that although parents in the Creighton Elementary School District did have high levels of engagement, student performance levels were static. Through the help of surveys of both parents and teachers, Dr. Paredes redesigned the district's parent-teacher engagement model to better serve both parties. The result - Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT*) - is proving effective, and the model is spreading across classrooms and districts. Dr. Paredes recently took time to discuss the model with Public School Insights.
Public School Insights (PSI): Tell us a little about the program at Creighton and the APTT Model. What are some of the key components?
Dr. Paredes: Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) is an intentional, systematic means of increasing student academic learning and performance by enhancing the quality of parent-teacher communication and collaboration. APTT was designed using the lessons learned from research and those learned by doing the work. APTT gives purpose, structure, and direction to school leaders and teachers on how to engage families in student learning. By providing parent education and creating a two-way system of regular communication, teachers can ensure that parents have knowledge and understanding of their children’s grade level learning goals, and that parents are engaged in helping their children meet or ...
While a college education is acknowledged to be the pathway into the middle class, getting into the higher education system requires an understanding of the application process. For many first generation college students, especially those who are from low-income families, the process is daunting with an overwhelming amount of information and countless choices. My own experience, with significant support from my high-school guidance counselor and an involved parent who did the financial aid forms, was stressful and at times confusing, and not everyone has the type of support I had. ...
With the recent release of the movie Won’t Back Down and the high-profile Chicago teacher union strike, it seems US public education is, once again, getting negative coverage in the mainstream media, with parents pitted against teachers or teachers pitted against administrators. Committed education professionals, in their advocacy on behalf of our nation’s public schools, continually highlight the importance of collaboration among teachers, administrators, parents and community members when it comes to ensuring high-performing public schools. The belief is that we are all in this endeavor together and we each have an important role to play. One inspiring example of effective parent-teacher engagement can be found in the Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT) model. ...
Chronic absenteeism is often thought of as a middle and high school issue. As children become responsible for getting themselves to school, those who are disengaged stop showing up.
But did you know that nationally, one in ten kindergarten and first grade students miss the equivalent of a month of school each year? In some districts, it is more than one in four. Why don’t we talk more about these shocking statistics?
Perhaps because we don’t know them. I had no idea that chronic absenteeism (when a child misses 10% or more of the school year) in the early grades was so common until a session last week at the Coalition for Community Schools’ 2012 National Forum, when Hedy Chang, director of Attendance Works, and representatives from school districts across the nation helped illuminate the scope of the problem.
I doubt I am alone in my ignorance on this issue. When data in Multnomah County (Oregon) showed that 20% of K-3 students are chronically absent – 28% of kindergarteners – stakeholders in both the schools and the community were shocked. ...
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