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"Give your community and its children a valuable gift--your time and talents. By supporting your schools through the gift of yourself and your resources, you strengthen your community, lead by example and send a strong message to children that their educational success is important."
Tipper Gore
Family/Child Advocate
Families across America are pitching in to make their schools better and help students achieve high standards. In their own way, they are facing the various issues that concern Americans about their schools. What follows are some ways families are tackling the seven important issues.
Make Schools Safe, Disciplined and Drug-Free:
A Precondition for Learning
Encourage Parent and Family Involvement
Help America Become a Reading, Literate Society
Reach for New Levels of Excellence:
Achieve High Standards and Real Accountability
Make Technology Available so All Children
Will Succeed in the 21st Century
Prepare Young People for Careers:
A Strong Transition From School to Work
Make College More Accessible:
Keep the Promise of the American Dream
Fathers at Beech Grove City Schools in Indiana provide a visible male parental presence at school-sponsored sporting events, dances, skating parties, and other student-based activities. The "Security Dads" ensure proper behavior, evict troublemakers when necessary, and generally keep the peace. Fathers were recruited through a variety of means including requests made at parent meetings, student referrals, and home visits. As a result of this effort, parental involvement in school and children's activities has increased and student behavior at events has improved.
When Coleman Harris became president of the Mount Vernon High School PTA in 1994, the same 8 to 20 people attended the monthly meetings. To increase interest in children's learning at the school, Harris worked with the school administration and the community. They developed mission statements both for the school and the Parent-Teacher-Student Association (PTSA). And the PTSA succeeded in enlisting 100 percent of the teachers, who then brought students and parents on board.
Perhaps the most effective action for increasing involvement at the school was to change the structure of the PTSA itself. "Parents want to be involved in the area of the school where their son or daughter is most active or directly involved...so we reorganized to establish one Parent Council for each grade. We also organized Community Resource Teams, composed of parents and non-parent citizens, to support all academic programs at the school." With so many community supporters, the PTSA now sends its newsletter to local community members as well as to parents.
To keep the community aware of the importance of educational accomplishments, the local McDonald's, in partnership with the school, exhibits photos of the school's honor roll students, varsity team athletes and successful graduates in display cases in the restaurant.
ENCOURAGE PARENT AND FAMILY INVOLVEMENT
Parents in Michigan are encouraged to monitor their children's TV viewing thanks to Continental Cablevision's "Better Viewing," a family guide to television. The guide provides entertaining activities and informative articles on how to use TV to stimulate learning. It also recommends shows to record on VCRs so parents may develop a home library of good programs.
HELP AMERICA BECOME A READING, LITERATE SOCIETY
REACH FOR NEW LEVELS OF EXCELLENCE: ACHIEVE HIGH STANDARDS AND REAL ACCOUNTABILITY
To support students in their learning outside of school, the National Catholic Educational Association developed a student assignment book with helpful hints on how to study and do homework. Parents check and sign their child's homework each day and keep a record of it in the book. Another feature of this book is space for a weekly written dialogue between the parent and teacher about the child's progress.
Teachers and principals encourage the parents to use this space as soon as they have any question about their child's work or anticipate a potential difficulty that impedes learning. Most often, these written dialogues lead to three-way conferences among parents, student and teachers to help the child. In the 1995-96 school year, 30,000 students and parents nationwide used the book.
MAKE TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE SO ALL CHILDREN WILL SUCCEED IN THE 21st CENTURY
PREPARE YOUNG PEOPLE FOR CAREERS: A STRONG TRANSITION FROM SCHOOL TO WORK
Parents and students participate in decision making at the Oakland Health and Bioscience Academy where the emerging needs of health- and science-related industries and current local job market trends structure the curriculum. The Academy is a school-within-a-school magnet program that is open to all students in the district. During their intensive three or four years of study, Academy students spend up to 80 percent of their day in integrated academic and lab classes. In related worksite learning experiences, they volunteer and do job shadowing, career exploration, clinical rotations, summer and senior year internships, and career portfolios. Recent evaluations showed that the Academy students achieve substantially higher grade point averages and rates of graduation, attendance, and college admission than other students at Oakland high schools. Business partners of the Academy, which also collaborate with teachers on the curriculum, include Kaiser Permanente, all the local hospitals, Johnson and Johnson, IBM, and the Berkeley Repertory.
MAKE COLLEGE MORE ACCESSIBLE: KEEP THE PROMISE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM
The U.S. Department of Education recently released the 1996-97 edition of Preparing Your Child for College: A Resource Book for Parents. This edition of the workbook provides up-to-date information on college costs and student financial aid, as well as expanded sections on the academic preparation recommended for college-bound students, strategies for keeping college costs down, and information on other sources of college planning information. It is especially suited for parents and grandparents with children in middle and high school, and even in the late elementary grades. Free copies can be requested by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.
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Better Education Is Everybody's Business
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