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Family Involvement
Blog Entries
Editor's note: This is the second in a series of guest blogs on how teachers view parent engagement and involvement in public schools. Yesterday, Renee Moore offered her perspective on how much parent involvement educators really want. Today, Larry Ferlazzo shares his thoughts on the difference between parent involvement and parent engagement.
“When it comes to a breakfast of ham and eggs, the chicken is involved but the pig is committed.”
This old saying is roughly analogous to the issue facing schools today as they consider the kind of relationships they want to build with the parents of their students. I would characterize it as a difference between parent involvement (the chicken) and parent engagement (the pig). I first become aware of this contrast through a study of organizing work by the Industrial Areas Foundation in Texas schools. Boston College professor Dennis Shirley wrote about the IAF’s decades-long efforts in his 1997 book Community Organizing For Urban School Reform.
Merriam Webster’s Dictionary defines involvement as “to enfold or envelop.” It defines engagement as “to interlock with; to mesh.” Those definitions get to the crux of the difference. When schools involve parents they are leading with ...
Editor's note: This is the first in a series of four guest blogs on how teachers view parent engagement and involvement in public schools. Stay tuned for a contribution from teacher-blogger Larry Ferlazzo.
I grew up in a big city and graduated from a magnet high school that had 5,000 students. My teachers barely knew who I was, much less who my parents were. How different from the Mississippi school districts where I’ve taught for nearly two decades. The total population of one town was just under 2,000, and half of them were students in our schools.
Parent involvement takes on a very different meaning when I see the parents of my students every week ringing me up in the grocery store, rinsing me out at the beauty shop, tuning up my car at the local garage, or delivering my mail. I worship with them, bowl with them, sit in the waiting rooms with them. I know them, and they trust me.
Trust is the issue with most parents. Here in the Delta, over 40% of the adults are illiterate; others have ...
Robert Pondiscio at the Core Knowledge blog recently summed up the findings of a new study on the impact of family conflict on student achievement:
Children from troubled families perform “considerably worse” on standardized reading and mathematics tests and are much more likely to commit disciplinary infractions and be suspended than other students, according to a new study. Writing in Education Next, Scott Carrell of UC-Davis and the University of Pittsburgh’s Mark Hoekstra offer evidence that “a single disruptive student can indeed influence the academic progress made by an entire classroom of students.”
Robert adds his own thoughtful interpretation of the study's ...
In Miami, educators and community members have joined forces to mount an innovative parent education program for immigrant families: ENCHOR AKOR. I recently had the privilege of speaking with several people intimately connected to the program, which serves primarily Haitian parents of children attending North Miami Middle School.
Immigrant parents generally have access to few parenting education materials that address their specific cultural concerns. ENCHOR AKOR aims to fill that void by helping parents build more constructive relationships with their children and thereby more effectively support their success in school. ENCHOR stands for “Encouragement, Consequences, Honor and Respect”—the program’s four pillars. AKOR is the equivalent acronym in Haitian-Creole.
The program’s workshops and resources have won a strong following among middle school parents. In the process, they have breathed life into the school’s PTA, which has grown from zero to 55 members in only a year.
The national PTA recognized ENCHOR AKOR with an honorable mention in its prestigious Phoebe Apperson Hearst-National PTA Excellence in Education Partnership Award program.
In the interview, you will hear from four people:
- Pastor Georges, who has shared the lessons of ENCHOR AKOR with his congregation;
- Ms. Wilhel Jean-Louis, a mother and school psychologist;
- Mrs. Smith, a Bahaman immigrant and mother who went through the program; and
- Dr. Guilhene Benjamin from Miami-Dade Public Schools’ Parent Academy, who helped design the program.
Download the entire interview here, or listen to 6 minutes of interview highlights:
[A transcript of these highlights appears below]
You can also listen to the following excerpts: ...
Mary Anne Schmitt-Carey believes we can make the college graduation prospects of inner city children every bit as strong as those of their suburban peers. As president of Say Yes to Education, she has the data to back up her claims. Schmitt-Carey recently spoke with us about her model and its astonishing impact in several U.S. cities.
Say Yes topples barriers to college by offering disadvantaged youth comprehensive supports ranging from health care to college scholarships. The results of this work are stunning. In communities where it is active, Say Yes has dramatically narrowed the high school and college graduation gaps between inner-city students and their suburban peers.
Schmitt-Carey emphasizes the need to rally many community partners around common goals. In Syracuse, for example, Say Yes has built a strong a coalition including the school district, mayor, city council, school board, teachers unions, higher education community, business organizations and community-service organizations. Rather than pointing fingers of blame, Schmitt-Carey says, these partners share responsibility for children's long-term success.
Hear highlights from our interview (6 minutes). [A transcript of these highlights appears below]
Or listen to the following excerpts from ...
There's something about the nation's education challenges that inspires a need for villains--and that's a shame. Many think tank dwellers cast teachers and administrators in that role: slothful, self-serving adults who value bureaucracy over children. (Please.)
Former big businessman and current Nevada university chancellor James Rogers is also on the hunt for villains in the education morality play, but he reserves his venom for "the public." Blogger Robert Pondiscio unearthed a Youtube video of Rogers exempting educators from blame: "The majority of educators work very hard, are much smarter than their critics, and are far more organized and efficient than their critics."
Rogers spends most of his time laying the blame for an education "disaster" at ...
Sally Broughton's middle school students have had a greater impact on their rural community than do many people three or four times their age. The Montana Teacher of the Year has helped her language arts and social studies students successfully advocate for policies to improve life in their school and their neighborhoods. In the process, her students at the Monforton School have strengthened their grasp of history, civics, mathematics, research, writing, and public speaking.
Broughton's remarkable achievements have earned her the American Civic Education Award from The Alliance for Representative Democracy. She recently told Public School Insights about the indelible mark her students have left on Bozeman, Montana. They have much to show for their work: public restrooms downtown, a school-wide bicycle helmet policy, a community playground, and a sophisticated early warning system for local residents living near a vulnerable earthen dam. And the list goes on....
President-Elect Obama is urging Americans to devote themselves to civic and community service. Sally Broughton's students in Bozeman can show you how it's done.
Download our full, 16-minute interview here, or read a transcript of interview highlights.
PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: I've heard quite a bit about these very, very fascinating projects that you've done and that have actually managed to change public policy in your community. Could you describe how you go about this, and how these projects support broader academic goals?
BROUGHTON: Absolutely. We do something called Project Citizen. During that time, the children find a problem that can be solved by public policy and they investigate it. ...
Dr. Susan B. Neuman has received much media attention recently as the apostate former Bush administration official who publicly opposes No Child Left Behind in its current form. As the Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education who presided over NCLB's early implementation, she certainly made waves by arguing that schools alone cannot close achievement gaps.
But Neuman has received less attention for her affirmative vision of what we can do to improve poor students' odds dramatically. Her new book, Changing the Odds for Children at Risk, lays out "seven essential principles of educational programs that break the cycle of poverty." On Wednesday, she talked to me about her book and her thoughts on current education policy.
The book uses extensive research on child development and effective programs to make the case for responsible, substantive investment in areas such as early care and education, comprehensive family supports, and after-school. (Not surprisingly, Neuman was an early signer of the "Broader, Bolder Approach to Education," a manifesto urging investment in more comprehensive supports for students' well-being.)
Neuman's thoughts on accountability deserve particular attention. She has famously criticized NCLB's accountability regime for emphasizing sanctions over support, but she is no critic of rigorous accountability. Rather, she argues that accountability structures should ensure sound program goals, adequate resources, timely course corrections, and strong outcomes.
You can download the entire interview here or listen to six minutes of interview highlights:
...
In a story that has received remarkably little media attention so far, eight urban public schools in Connecticut are participating in an experiment to give teachers, parents and communities greater autonomy over curriculum, governance and budgets. The Connecticut Alliance for CommPACT Schools is helping these formerly struggling schools reorganize.
Among the hallmarks of this effort: ...
Harvard professor and cultural critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr. captured some 25 million viewers with his riveting PBS documentary series, African American Lives (WNET). Using genealogical research and DNA science, Gates traces the family history of 19 famous African Americans. What results is a rich and moving account of the African American experience.
Gates recently spoke with Public School Insights about the documentary and a remarkable idea it inspired in him: To use genealogy and DNA research to revolutionize the way we teach history and science to African American Students. Now, Gates is working with other educators to create an "ancestry-based curriculum" in K-12 schools. Many African American students know little about their ancestors. Given the chance to examine their own DNA and family histories, Gates argues, they are likely to become more engaged in their history and science classes. As they rescue their forebears from the anonymity imposed by slavery, students begin to understand their own place in the American story.
If the stories in African American Lives are any guide, they're in for an experience.
The Significance of African American Lives
PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Tell me about "African-American Lives" and its significance, in your view.
GATES: Wow, that's a big question. [Laughing] I got the idea in the middle of the night to do a series for public television that would combine genealogy and ancestry tracing through genetics. I've been fascinated with my own family tree since I was 10 years old - that's the year that my grandfather died. ...
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