Latest News and Comment from Education

Saturday, April 12, 2014

4-12-14 Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement"


Engaging Parents In School… | Going Beyond Parent "Involvement":







Good Recommendations On Who To Follow On Twitter For Parent Engagement Issues
Resourceful folks to follow on twitter: #Opp4All @Joe_Mazza @CommSchools pic.twitter.com/huaDTjC9Ph — L.A. Ed Partnership (@PartnerwithLAEP) April 9, 2014
The “Tooth Fairy” Parent Engagement Strategy
RT @Joe_Mazza: Edus who "get it"- @ChrisWejr's letter to tooth fairy for kid who lost a tooth at school #ptchat pic.twitter.com/HnsEEcTRcv — Larry Ferlazzo (@Larryferlazzo) April 9, 2014 I’d lay odds that the parents of that child are now going to be more open to family engagement activities after receiving this note…
A Thorough Obituary Of inBloom
A couple of days ago I wrote inBloom Is On Its Deathbed & No Tears Are Shed about the parent-opposed data-gathering fiasco known as inBloom. The Hechinger Report has since written a much more thorough obituary of inBloom, The fate of big data after inBloom. I’m adding it to The Best Posts On The inBloom Data Fiasco .
Department of Education Releases New Parent and Community Engagement Framework
Today, the Department of Education released what they call a new “Parent and Community Engagement Framework.” To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure what that means, but it can’t hurt for them to place a more public emphasis on parent engagement. You can read about it at the Department’s blog post; get a good overview of it at Education Week; and actually access it here. Of the documents they’
National Family Engagement Conference Began Today
Five hundred people are attending the National Family Engagement Conference in Cincinnati, which began today. You can read a pretty good overview of it at Education Week. Here are a few selected tweets that came out of the conference this afternoon: RT @Joe_Mazza: Anne Henderson starts by identifying new research on impact of stdnt learning tied 2 family engagement pic.twitter.com/KarxxBunVX — La

APR 08

inBloom Is On Its Deathbed & No Tears Are Shed
inBloom, the ill-conceived, Gates-funded effort to collect just about every piece of data on just about every K-12 student in America (and opposed by parents across the United States), lost its only remaining customer last month when New York State withdrew from it. Here’s an excerpt from The Wall Street Journal: New York has reversed course to use an Atlanta-based company to store student data fo

APR 07

Video: “Early language and the brain: Smart talk”
I’m adding this video from The Economist to The Best Resources For Learning About The “Word Gap”:
British Schools Plan: “parents should get a ‘checklist’ telling them how to raise their children”
British schools planning to give parents a checklist telling them what skills and knowledge their kids should have before they attend kindergarten. The article about it in The Telegraph has over seven hundred comments, and they’re worth skimming. The guidelines seem to make sense, but the tone and rhetoric behind the checklist just seems so patronizing. What do you think?

APR 06

Secretary Duncan To Be Guest On Next #PTchat
As I’ve previously posted, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will be participating in April 8th’s #PTchat on Twitter. Here’s the announcement on the DOE’s blog: On April 8, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan will be taking to Twitter to gain additional feedback from parents and educators on community and parent engagement best practices during the weekly #PTchat. The chat will coincide with the Nati
Want To Organize A “Parent Camp” At Your School?
I’ve previously posted about the idea of a “parent camp,” and now have learned that there is a site full of resources to help people organize their own. The site is called #PARENTCAMP: An Unconference For Parents & Educators, and here’s how it describes itself: The ParentCamp experience, by design, is a hybrid “un-conference” opportunity for parents and teachers to come together and model the 

APR 05

Kellogg Foundation Releases Poll Results & Increases Funding For Parent Involvement Programs
I’ve previously posted about the Kellogg Foundation’s plan to make $5 million in parent involvement grants over three years. However, they apparently received so many applications for funding they have decided to spend $5 million in the first year alone. I assume that means that they’ll add more funding in the subsequent years, but don’t know that for sure (and a quick look on their website didn’t

APR 04

A Parent-Teacher Conference Without Numbers
Two recent posts by parents at other blogs both made the point that they are tired of having the focus of their conversations on measuring their children by numbers. In What parents don’t want to hear at parent-teacher conferences, Journo Adviser says: When my wife and I sat down at our daughter’s 5th grade parent-teacher conference last week, we hoped to get a sense that the teacher understood ou

APR 03

“Principal Connection / Tips for Better Parent-Teacher Conferences”
Principal Connection / Tips for Better Parent-Teacher Conferences is a nice article by Thomas R. Hoerr in ASCD Educational Leadership. Here’s an excerpt: Too often, parent-teacher conferences are seen as one-way reports from teacher to parent, but a parent-teacher conference should be a collaboration. Teachers have information to share, but they also need to allocate time for questions and discuss
“Teachers make house calls to improve performance”
Teachers make house calls to improve performance is a nice article in Cabinet Report that give an overview of making home visits (plus, it describes what’s happening at our school!). I’m adding it to The Best Resources For Learning About Teacher Home Visits.