Group items tagged

A new framework for improving family engagement - recommended to the PfC by a community member.

What student voice and parent engagement do NOT look like, and thoughts on what to do about it.

Background/Context: Recent trends suggest that middle-class parents may be a growing constituency in urban public schools and districts. Within the burgeoning literature on the middle class in urban public schools, most scholars have focused on parents' goals and orientations and/or the consequences of parental involvement in classroom and school settings. This article broadens the literature's scope through a focus on middle- and upper-middle-class parents' "out-of-school," neighborhood-based engagement. Examining the place-based organizing of a middle- and upper-middle-class neighborhood parents' group, this article highlights the significant influence that parents' work outside classrooms and PTA meetings can have on a local school.

Teachers know that making lessons relevant helps motivate students. The most frequent approach is to link curriculum to learner interests. Two educators, Mario Fantini and Gerry Weinstein, in two now out-of-print books, Making Urban Schools Work and Towards Humanistic Education, pointed out that it would be more effective to link curriculum to the concerns of learners. (You can find used copies of both through Book Finder.) What do kids worry about? What anxieties sometimes keep them up at night? What peer interactions churn up their emotions? How do they deal with their fears about the future, college admissions, employment or bullying?

The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (JGC) at Stanford University partners with communities to develop leadership, conduct research and effect change to improve the lives of youth.

Best quote: Where are the student-led ideas, the disruptive solutions and true innovation?  Article on brand-consciousness for schools.

Thoughtful critique of the PLC-obsessed school culture

PD shouldn't be done to teachers, it should be generated BY teachers. Sounds a lot like the good kind of meetings I've been to, including the Partnership. Ensures relevance and ownership of the process. Maybe a method the Partnership should learn more about

"One of the principles guiding the transformation work at Sammamish is that student achievement and engagement will increase when students have more ownership of their school community..."