A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

The Partnership for Family Involvement in Education

The Partnership for Family Involvement in Education seeks to promote children’s learning through the development of family-school-community partnerships. Under the motto of "Better Education is Everybody’s Business," thousands of family, school, community, employer and religious groups have come together to support student learning to high standards. These partners represent a growing grassroots movement across this country organized into four areas:

• Family-School Partners for Learning support home-school partnerships and preservice and in-service training to help teachers work effectively with families. Family partners strengthen schools through at-home activities including encouraging reading, monitoring homework, making sure their children are prepared for and attend school; and through at-school activities including attending school conferences and asking for challenging course work. School partners support families’ expectations for their children’s education, reach out to parents as partners, offer parents help, and are accessible when parents are available.

• Employers for Learning Partners adopt family- and student-friendly business practices, such as providing leave time to attend parent conferences and volunteer in school, and provide parent training and child care.

• Community and Cultural Organizations for Learning support learning communities through organized before- and after-school and summer activities, help to make streets safe for children, and support supervised recreational activities.

• Religious Organizations for Learning provide reading partners, mentors, and other caring adults to support children’s learning, provide parent education programs, sponsor cultural programs, make their buildings available for organized activities, and support out-of-school learning.

New members join the Partnership through a sign-on statement developed by each sector’s founding members.

The Partnership for Family Involvement in Education has had many accomplishments since it was launched in September 1994. They include:

• Increased membership from approximately 85 members in September 1994 to more than 2,800 today.

• Held the first "Time Crunch" conference for partnership members in cooperation with Teachers College of Columbia University, Working Mother Magazine, and the U.S. Department of Education. The time crunch facing families and the challenges this presents to families, children, and schools was the focus of the two-day conference. Golden Apple Awards were presented in three categories of family-friendly practices: families and schools, community groups, and employers. The winners were featured on the Today Show.

• Produced many user-friendly documents (e.g. Strong Families, Strong Schools; Employers, Families, and Education; America Goes Back to School Partners' Activity Guide; READ*WRITE*NOW!; Preparing Your Child for College) available free of charge to the public by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN or on the Department’s web site at http://www.ed.gov/.

• Increased participation in the summer reading program, READ*WRITE*NOW!, from 400,000 students in the summer of 1995 to one million in the summer of 1996. The goal for the summer of 1997 is to reach 1.5 million children through the READ*WRITE*NOW! program.

• In conjunction with The Conference Board and Employers for Learning, held a very successful business and education conference. "Better Education Is Everybody’s Business" brought together business leaders, educators, and representatives of community and religious organizations in a format that presented model programs for working together to ensure that today’s students are prepared to become tomorrow’s leaders. A publication that captures the conference highlights and issues and that incorporates business survey data related to employee and family involvement in education will be available in fall of 1997. At the conference, the Conference Board awarded its "Best in Class" awards for exemplary business and education partnerships and gave special recognition awards to the ten employers who co-sponsored this conference.

• Signed on the state of Maryland to President Clinton's "Call to Action" and to the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education, as the first state to do so, providing a model for integrating the support mechanisms across government, the school system, private industry, and community groups for family involvement in education.

• Extended into the third year the grassroots back-to-school effort, America Goes Back to School, which included more than 2,500 local back-to-school events in the past two years and the publication of Partner Activity kits to assist local communities, families, employers, community organizations, colleges, and elected officials in developing year-long partnerships with their local schools.

In addition to the activities of the partnership sectors of family/school, employers, community and religious organizations, the partnership promotes two national initiatives, with an additional initiative in the planning stages. These initiatives are supported by partnership members in a variety of unique and interesting ways.

• The America Reads Challenge asks every American to identify what role he or she can play--professionally and personally--to help all of our children to read independently and well by the end of the third grade.. Additionally, America Reads Challenge legislation is pending in Congress to support the goal of high expectations for the reading skills of all children and to support and expand local reading initiatives. Several strategies are essential for helping our children learn to read. Partners are supporting the America Reads Challenge through strategies such as:
  Creating more after school, weekend and summer learning opportunities to supplement classroom instruction in reading. With the assistance of community groups engaged in this effort, the Department recently published a guide that gives practical ideas and highlights successful programs for before and after school learning activities. Keeping Schools Open as Community Learning Centers: Extending Learning in a Safe, Drug-Free Environment Before and After School is available from the Department’s Information Resource Center, at 1-800-USA-Learn.

  Building on, expanding, and initiating local efforts to improve reading. Even when students receive the very best in-class instruction, some will always need extra time and assistance to meet the high levels of reading skills needed in school, in the workplace, and throughout life. The America Reads Challenge is initiating and encouraging thousands of these efforts.

  Sponsoring sites for summer reading programs. With 50 literacy and reading groups of the Partnership for Family Involvement in Education, the U.S. Department of Education designed the summer reading program READ*WRITE*NOW! to help fight the "Summer reading drop off". The program encourages children to read 30 minutes a day at least once or twice a week with an older reading partner, get a library card and use it, and learn a new vocabulary word a day. Local libraries, Title I schools, and youth groups such as the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and Hadassah help sponsor sites for this summer program. The READ*WRITE*NOW! kit is available on the Department’s web page at www.ed.gov/Family/RWN/Activ97/ or by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.

  Providing ideas and supportive materials to parents and caregivers to help young children develop and improve their language skills and develop readiness skills for learning. Parents are their child’s first and most important teachers, beginning at birth. Research shows that parents and caregivers can engage in exercises to foster development of the necessary skills in their child, can parents and caregivers can work together to ensure that each child has the proper foundation for reading skills. The America Reads Challenge seeks to reinforce the importance of skill-building activities for children beginning at birth, and of programs that encourage and support parent involvement activities. Early childhood researchers, along with the U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Corporation for National Service, have developed a kit for parents and caregivers called Ready*Set*Read. This kit is available on the Education Department’s web page at http://www.ed.gov/ and by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.

Further information on the America Reads Challenge is included in this publication.

• America Goes Back to School is an annual effort that focuses attention on improving education across America during the back-to-school time of August through October and asks individuals personally and professionally to make a year-long commitment to their local schools. America Goes Back to School is currently in its third year; in 1996 more than 2,000 America Goes Back to School events took place in every state in the nation. To participate, individuals personally or through a sponsoring organization can spend time reading to a child, educate students to prevent substance abuse, recruit and organize tutors, mentor a child in math, sponsor a career day, or sponsor an event to connect middle and high school students with colleges. Materials to support the involvement of families and schools; employers; community, cultural and religious organizations, colleges and universities; and elected officials and policy makers is available on the Department’s web site at http://www.ed.gov/ or by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.

• Preparing for College Early is a soon-to-be launched initiative that will target middle school students and their families to ensure that they have the necessary information and support to set their sights on a college education and be prepared academically and financially to accomplish their goals. The Department recently released Getting Ready for College Early, a new pamphlet for parents of children in their middle and high school years. It offers information about the importance of planning for college early, including information on the right courses to take in middle and secondary school, planning for the costs of a college education, and perhaps most importantly, paying for college. This new pamphlet is available on the Department’s web site at http://www.ed.gov/ or by calling 1-800-USA-LEARN.

• School-parent agreements or compacts that bring schools and parents together to agree about what they want their children to learn and what each will do to accomplish these goals. These compacts are part of Title I of The Improving America’s Schools Act, but are encouraged for all schools and the families they serve.

• Parental Information and Resource Centers are funded under the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. The funds are provided to state and local partnerships to begin family information centers throughout the country, establishing at least one family resource center in every state by 1998. Twenty-eight centers were funded in 1995-96 and an additional 14 centers were funded in 1997. For the nearest Parent and Information Resource Center to you, refer to Appendix I or call 1-800-USA-LEARN.

• The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has received a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to develop Ready to Learn Television. Ready to Learn Television is designed to increase school readiness in young children across America. The grant is supporting the creation of new family and children’s programming of high quality which is being interspersed with education message breaks.

[About This Book]

[President Clinton's America Reads Challenge Act 1997]