Blueprint Missing Key Ingredient

President Obama introduced his blueprint on education recently, and now that health care reform is behind us, it will likely begin to move forward. The Blueprint focuses on five key elements: college and career ready students, great teachers and leaders in every school, equity and opportunity for all students, raising the bar and rewarding excellence, and promoting innovation and continuous improvement.

While these are great goals, the devil is in the details. It is striking that in spite of recent research there is no mention of family engagement. Research tells us family engagement has a ton of protective factors and results in students who are better behaved, attend school more regularly, are more likely to enroll in higher level classes, and get better grades and test scores. Nobody believes that family engagement is the only factor that will ensure a student's success. As Dr. Karen Mapp points out when she likens education to baking a cake, good instruction is the flour, but family engagement is the baking soda.

In the past, schools have struggled with how to engage families in ways that will benefit students. We have certainly come a long way since parents were expected to bake brownies or make copies in the office, but we have a long way to go. For many years Federal legislation has required that families participate in meaningful ways in schools that receive Title I funding. Looking at the monitoring reports for almost every state shows schools still don't understand the best way to do this. Parent Information and Resource Centers (PIRCs) have evolved into a technical assistance office within each state to help schools understand what the most effective type of family engagement looks like and how to achieve it in their schools.

The fact that the proposed blueprint contains no language around family engagement and eliminates the PIRCs altogether is troubling. If we truly want to have students who leave school college and career ready, the research tells us family engagement is a key factor. History tells us its hard work and schools need help in getting it done.

Failing Schools Say They Need More Parent Involvement

This article from Central Coast News appeared on March 8, 2010. Special Thanks to NYS PIRC for posting it initially.

Greenfield, Calif- Laura Zavala started teaching first grade at Greenfield Elementary 5 years ago. She's frustrated the school is seen as consistently under achieving, We are trying our best and I can see it in my class I can see the growth. You know when the kids come in they are at a particular level and when they leave I see so much growth and it's frustrating when I see the scores are not there," said Zavala.

Zavala told Central Coast News she needs more programs to help get her students on track. She also said more parents need to get involved, "They don't speak English or they work. They work from like five in the morning to six o'clock at night so when they get home they are tired and some of the kids are with a baby sitter and in the after school programs, so they don't talk to their parents as much," said Zavala.

Zavala believes if the students are really going to succeed the parents need the tools to help, "It's very important to read to write to do their work at home and we need to involve them. We need to teach the parents how to teach their kids," said Zavala.

Greenfield Union School Districts Superintendent Elida Garza says she thinks her schools can overcome the language barrier and get back on track with the states education requirements, "My parents did not have a formal education but they instilled in us the value of an education. The value that if you work hard and study hard it is what's going to break that cycle of poverty," said Garza.