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.
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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. ...
Toppenish High School, in south central Washington State, is a rural high-poverty school with 99% of students qualifying for free and reduced lunch and a 95% minority student body. The community’s economy rests primarily on agriculture and tourism, two sectors suffering from the recent downturn.
Schools with such profiles in such communities are often ones that grapple with inadequate funding, find student groups struggling on standardized tests and have lower graduation and college-going rates. But proving that great school leadership is a key component of beating such odds, Principal Trevor Greene has set high goals and invested in key improvement strategies that are showing amazing results for Toppenish High School. He was recently recognized as MetLife/NASSP’s 2013 National High School Principal of the Year. ...
The civic mission of schools has a tendency to get lost in the din of other debates surrounding our nation’s education system. Beyond the uproar over teacher evaluations, standardized testing and the role of government, we must keep in mind the fundamental purposes of public education, the heart and soul of a public system.
This civic purpose of public education seeks to empower our nation’s children, and future leaders, with a deep seated understanding of citizenship, civic duty and societal needs. It aims to provide the very tools needed for future generations to participate in the debates surrounding not just education policy, but other critical issues we as a nation – and member of the global community – face in the twenty first century. Education is more than just factual knowledge, and civic engagement and participation depend on a deeper understanding of our culture, society and history. ...
The purple shaded area in a Venn diagram of two overlapping circles – one blue and one red – is the sometimes uneasy but always necessary connection between traditional public schools and the business community. The extent to which healthy public-private partnerships develop depends entirely on how those partnerships are ultimately managed by those at the local level.
It’s not surprising that public schools and businesses may have an inherent distrust of each other. After all, their missions are very different; public schools exist to provide every child a quality education and businesses exist to make a profit. But the economic recession is forcing schools to do more with less, which is in turn pushing more districts to look at ways to finance their operations, including by forming partnerships with businesses and other community stakeholders that may not have existed in the past. ...
If you’re hungry, chances are that you won’t be focused on your meeting, paying attention to a seminar or truly engaged in anything you’re trying to do. The same happens for children in school. Being hungry affects their capacity to focus in the classroom (as noted by, for example, the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for American Progress).
There are numerous reasons students may come to school hungry: Tight family budgets, limited morning time to prepare a nutritious meal, or a child being physically incapable of eating immediately after waking up. Research shows that school breakfast programs can address these circumstances. And through innovative programs such as Breakfast in the Classroom, schools and districts are ensuring that no child slips through the crack and has to spend the school day hungry. ...
As teachers prepare lessons and materials for the fast-approaching 2013 school year, it is an opportune time to highlight the value of Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) as a tool for the nation’s educators. Learning Forward explains PLCs as: “Learning communities [consisting of education professionals that] convene regularly and frequently during the workday to engage in collaborative professional learning to strengthen their practice and increase student results.” PLCs are not a new phenomenon, but they are gaining increased attention as the national conversation around education focuses on improving teacher quality through effective professional development. ...
President Obama recently established an education initiative for African American students. The goal: Provide them greater access “to a complete and competitive education from the time they're born through the time they get a career.”
There is little doubt that the timing of such an announcement coincides with November’s election, yet to suggest that such an initiative is merely politically symbolic is a defeatist assessment. A renewed focus on the achievement gap between black and white students, indeed between white students and many minority groups, is an opportunity for the education community to push for greater investment in the work they’ve been doing for years to produce better outcomes for students of color. ...
As a constituency, children receive little attention in federal budget discussions. Today in Washington, and indeed leading up to the implementation of the Bipartisan Budget Control Act (BCA) (aka sequestration) next year, federal expenditures will be on the tip of everyone’s tongue.
According to the Kids’ Share 2012 report, just released by the Urban Institute, federal spending on children fell by $2 billion in 2011, the first decline of its kind in 30 years. Of even greater concern, spending is projected to fall again in 2012 as American Recovery and Reinvestment (AARA) money runs out. According the report, “CBO Baseline projections suggest that federal outlays on children will fall 6 percent in 2012 and an additional 2 percent in 2013.” This takes the BCA into account. Public education emerges as the biggest loser as the AARA expenditures dwindle, losing $13 billion, primarily in the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Special Education, and Title I/Education for the Disadvantaged. In total, federal spending for public education is projected to decline from $64 billion in 2011 to $37 billion by 2022, or $47 billion without BCA restrictions. Finally, total federal outlays will increase by ...
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