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Education Videos

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Obama on Parental Involvement
“In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent -- responsibility for our children's education must begin at home. That is not a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. That's an American issue."
 


Obama on Outsourcing Parenting
President Obama addressing the NAACP on its 100th anniversary, stressing the importance of parenting and responsibility. "That means putting away the X-Box."




Standardized Testing
The No Child Left Behind Act is up for renewal this year, so Katie Couric wonders whether standardized tests truly measure how kids do in school and life. (CBSNews.com)



New Rule: Don't Blame Teachers When there are no books in the house, and there are no parents in the house, you know who raises the kids? That's right, the television. Kids aren't keeping up with their studies; they're keeping up with the Kardashians. We're allowing the television, as babysitter, to turn us into a nation of idiots.
 


Teacher of the Year 2010 President Obama thanked and honored the 2010 National Teacher of the Year.
 


College Bound
A series of programs designed to aid parents in preparing their Middle School and High School children for college entry.



Fitness: Childhood Obesity!
First Lady Michelle Obama kicks off “Let’s Move”, a program designed to tackle childhood obesity by encouraging exercise and healthy eating.



Family Time During School
It can be difficult for parents to keep on top of what their children are doing, especially when those parents work at night. a Clovis Elementary school is trying to help those families by encouraging family time during the school day.



Intro to Special Education
Aimed at parents of students with disabilities, this video covers the special education process, including Evaluation, Referral, Creation of the Individualized Education Plan, Placement, and Annual Review.


Low Student Achievement
A national report found that an alarming number of high school seniors lack proficiency in reading and math. Katie Couric says we must do a better job of educating our kids. (CBSNews.com)
Capacity Building Partnerships
Does Your District Have Systemic Parent Engagement?

Introduction
In his January 2011 State of the Union speech, President Barack Obama discussed the shared responsibility of the home, school, and community in enhancing our country’s education system, stating, “...the question is whether all of us — as citizens and as parents — are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed. That responsibility begins not in our classrooms, but in our homes and communities.”

In his keynote address at the MOM Congress on Education and Learning in May of 2010, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan likewise defined his vision for how parents can and should be engaged in their children’s education:

“My vision for family engagement is ambitious...I want to have too many parents demanding excellence in their schools. I want all parents to be real partners in education with their children's teach- ers, from cradle to career. In this partnership, students and parents should feel connected--and teachers should feel supported...We need parents to speak out and drive change in chronically- underperforming schools where children receive an inferior edu- cation. With parental support, those struggling schools need to be turned around now—not tomorrow, because children get only one chance at an education.” (Pictured: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Project Appleseed president, Kevin Walker).

The President’s and Secretary’s remarks are aligned with a robust and comprehensive view of the role of families in their children’s schooling. Instead of the involvement of parents being seen as a peripheral, compliance- driven aspect of whole school improvement, their vision calls for parents to be full partners with school staff and other members of the community in the work of creating and sustaining excellent schools.

Our nation's leaders recognize the power of parents. However, the limited capacity of parents and state-, district-, and school-level personnel to partner with each other and share the responsibility of improving student performance factors heavily into the relatively poor execution and oversight of the Title I parent provisions. (Mapp 2011, Title I and Parent Involvement: Lessons from the Past, Recommendations for the Future).

Capacity Building Partnerships
Project Appleseed stands poised on the brink of launching an unprecedented initiative, to turn around so called “failing” schools, by mobilizing large numbers of Title I parents.  The plan - Capacity Building Partnerships, rests on two truths:  First, we know that when parents and caring adults volunteer in schools and commit themselves to supporting children, educational outcomes skyrocket.  And second, while recruiting such school volunteers is not always easy, aggressively recruiting community members by going door to door—in other words, community organizing—does work.

Project Appleseed's Capacity Building Partnership program is designed to support the development of family engagement throughout multiple schools, multiple  school districts and across entire states.  The individual components – parental engagement and community organizing - will be delivered in a researched-based and integrated manner, to increase student achievement. 

Our plan puts the two together. Project Appleseed will organize family and community involvement, door-to-door, in the lowest performing schools & districts.  The Capacity Building Partnership program will:
  • Recruit parents, grandparents and caring adults to volunteer to take our learning compact, the Parental Involvement Pledge. With the Pledge, we ask these volunteers to spend at least five hours each semester assisting with school and fifteen minutes reading with a child each evening.
  • Apply the Red Carpet Treatment so that schools can examine how welcoming and family- friendly they are and allows them to develop strate- gies that can be implemented to make them more inviting to families and the community. The overriding objective of this program is to increase parent in- volvement; and to help parents, visitors and members of the community feel more comfortable coming to school. (Welcoming Atmosphere Walk-Through, NCPIE, 2005).
  • Conduct Teacher House Calls with teams of educators and parents visiting students and their families at home, build trusting relationships, and share instructional tools and information about college and career preparedness. Participation in home visits is voluntary for everyone and teachers are paid for their time.
  • Begin College With Middle School Parents.  Our Capacity Building Partnership will focus on connecting middle and high school parents, with information on college and career preparedness through door-to-door canvassing, home visits and community and school events.
  • Engage training for parent leaders. Project Appleseed’s Capacity Building Partnership has a vision of improving outcomes for children by increasing family member involvement in their children' education (with a primary focus on parents). To achieve this, Capacity Building Partnership recruits and trains parent leaders in communities using a series of workshops. The workshops teach parent leaders how to get involved in their children’s education and also how to train other parents in their community to get involved. The Partnership then supports ongoing training in communities by providing parent leaders with technical assistance on training and disseminating materials on family involvement to all parents who go through the workshops.
According to the study, Organized Communities, Strong Schools.pdf, conducted by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University, community organizing:
  • Involves youth, public school parents, and community residents and/or institutions
  • Builds power by mobilizing large numbers of people
  • Focuses on accountability, equity, and quality
  • Recruits and develops leadership as a core activity
  • Uses direct action tactics to apply pressure on decision-makers
  • Aims to transform power relations that produce failing schools in low- and moderate- income neighborhoods and communities of color.
Project Appleseed will select partners for funding that will be sought from:
  • Race to the Top Fund
  • Investing In Innovation Fund
  • Title I School Improvement Fund
  • State Education Agency (SEA) Title I funds
  • District Title I funds
  • Private foundations
  • Corporate sponsorship
  • Individual donors

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Project Appleseed actively looks for schools, districts and states, that share our set of standards for effective parental involvement.  We seek to form partnerships that will organize parental involvement around these beliefs:
  • The belief that mobilizing large numbers of parents & family members are key to increased achievement.
  • Effective outreach includes systematically welcoming parents into the school building by giving parents and families the Red Carpet Treatment.

The Parental Involvement Pledge
Why A Common Region or Statewide Learning Compact?
In a U.S. Department of Education study, a majority of Title I schools indicate that compacts like the Parental Involvement Pledge help promote family involvement.  Title I principals were asked to rate the helpfulness of compacts in achieving different types of school and family outcomes.  Responses tended to differ by school poverty, with the highest-poverty schools finding compacts most helpful.In the highest-poverty schools, 85 percent of principals found Title I compacts helpful in supporting homework completion.
  • About 8 out of 10 principals in high-poverty Title I schools rated compacts as helpful, as did a majority of principals in low-poverty schools.
  • Across all schools, about 30 percent of the principals considered compacts “very helpful”.
  • Principals perceived compacts as having the greatest impact on homework completion, school climate, student discipline, and reading at home—factors that are amenable to intervention by school-family partnership activities.

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The Parental Involvement Pledge enhances and helps organize programs for families and communities that include:
  • Family night
  • Programs to encourage parent participation in school activities and support of children's academic achievements
  • Movie nights
  • Saturday family fun
  • Family literacy programs
  • GED, literacy, and ESL programs
  • Community service projects involving school children, parents, and community residents
  • Newsletters
  • Parenting classes
  • Visual and performing arts
  • Conflict resolution and violence reduction
  • Workshops on such topics job seeking, stress management, drug/alcohol abuse, home safety, child abuse, and positive discipline.


How Its Made

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