Lawmakers in Dubai hope that forcing schools and parents to sign a legally binding contract before children can enroll will cut down on the number of disputes over fees, vacation, refunds and attendance policies, reports Wafa Issa of The National. The contracts will force schools to put all their policies in writing and in exchange parents will have to turn over accurate information regarding their children’s medical, psychological and prior academic records.

The contracts will also lay out a tuition payment schedule and will provide steps that both parties must take in order to resolve disagreements over any issues laid out in the contract. A pilot program where the contracts will be used is set to begin this fall at 6 private schools around Dubai. If the contracts prove successful, they will become mandatory at the rest of Dubai’s 153 private schools that serve nearly a quarter million students.

Experts at Dubai’s education regulator, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority, believe the new contracts will reduce the number of disputes between parents and schools.

“Through our work we realised that the reasons behind many of the disputes … were the same,” said Amal Bel Hasa of the KHDA. “We also realised that schools which had clearly outlined contracts experienced fewer disputes with parents.
“By introducing this unified contract we are hoping to provide a better understanding for parents of their rights and duties and thus reduce disputes.”

The schools remain free to decide their policies, but the contract is aimed at ensuring that both parties are clear about what those policies are.

The contracts currently in use at most schools don’t go into details about school policies and parental responsibilities. This lack of clarity naturally leads to conflict between school administrators and parents – something that the new, more detailed agreements are designed to eliminate.

According to the KHDA, a single template will also make the agreements easier for parents to understand. Even families that switch schools will be familiar with the contract they will need to sign to enroll their children in a new institution.

The contract terms were designed according to international standards but take into account local requirements, she said, and KHDA consulted extensively with the schools and the parents.

The six schools taking part in the project are Dubai Modern Education School, Al Ittihad Private School Al Mamzar, Al Ittihad Private School Jumeirah, School of Modern Skills. Greenwood International School and American Academy in Al Mizhar.

The schools teach nearly 10,000 pupils, about 80 per cent of whom are Emirati.

The post Dubai to Mandate Parent Rights, Responsibility Contracts appeared first on Education News.

The Sacramento Bee reports that a number of families are filing a lawsuit to stop the district from closing 7 elementary school currently operating in the Sacramento City Unified School District. The lawsuit alleges that the district specifically targeted schools in high-minority, low-income areas because officials believe that residents who fall into those demographics don’t have the political influence needed to oppose the move.

The attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the families, Mark Merin, has requested an injunction that could put the closures on hold until the lawsuit is settled. According to Merin, the U.S. District Court Judge could make a ruling on the injunction as early as next month.

The suit described the decision by a slim majority of the school district board as “motivated by an intent to discriminate against minority populations which dominate in these schools.” Closing the schools, the suit warned, will have a “disastrous discriminatory effect on the poor, disadvantaged population.”

Trustees originally considered closing as many as 11 schools before voting on seven after getting community feedback. District officials said they identified campuses for closure based on how little each elementary school used its capacity, a measurement they suggested would save the most money.

Board President Jeff Cuneo and District Superintendent Jonathan Raymond disagreed with Merin’s assertions in the strongest words. They called the lawsuit “baseless” and added that the only thing that it would accomplish is to drain more money from the district’s already empty coffers.

Merin claims that the process to determine which schools were subject to closure violated federal and state laws guaranteeing due process and prohibiting discrimination bases on race or national origin. The lawsuit also makes an argument resting on the Americans with Disabilities Act because a number of students affected are classified as special needs.

“It was clear that our communities were unfairly targeted,” said Seng Vang of the activist group.

“The district betrayed our community’s trust by targeting schools they had no justification for closing down,” she said.

In a separate statement, she said that low-income families make up 72 percent of the student population district-wide but constitute 98 percent of the students who will be displaced by the closures.

Bee research shows about 93 percent of students attending the seven closure schools are minorities, compared with 81 percent district-wide.

The post Sacramento Parents Bring Lawsuit to Stop School Closures appeared first on Education News.

by Laurie H. Rogers

“Culture of Power”: That’s what a parent recently called the prevailing attitude in the local school district. It’s an apt description. Power is what people in public education know, and power is what they crave. In any culture of power, dissenters are seen as the problem and dealt with accordingly.

I’m privileged to know some teachers and staff members who care deeply about the children and who work hard to do what’s best for them. But there are many, many others whose interests begin and end with themselves and with their own economic/political/social agenda. Conversing with these self-interested people in a reasonable, intelligent way is impossible, a fruitless exercise. They want; they don’t want. It’s all they can see. Their logic is infantile and their perspective constricted and unyielding. With thin skins and fragile egos, it doesn’t take much for them to start showing teeth and claws.

Public education has been infiltrated by a willfully ignorant, bureaucratic, obscenely expensive, narcissistic, dictatorial mob. The Edu Mob is an enterprise concerned with enriching, maintaining and expanding itself – not with accountability, responsibility or transparency. Derelict in its duty to the children and morally bankrupt, the Edu Mob blames others, attacks dissenters, and finds creative ways to get more money (such as filing lawsuits; trading private student information for grants and other payments; and training children to support the enterprise without question).

This video from Utah – just 8 ½ minutes – shows socio-emotional indoctrination in textbooks that claim to be aligned to the Common Core. If you click on no other link in my article, please click on this one. With these books, small children will learn to use inflammatory, antagonistic language to get what they want. These books actively work to develop negative feelings in the children for their parents.

Meanwhile, those in the Edu Mob tend to see what’s academically good for the children as bad, and what’s academically bad as good. The harder we argue for what’s actually good, the less successful we are. It took me years to see it and believe it. The line they draw is clear; we’re either “in” or “out,” and we advocates are out. They see our focus on the children’s academics as a threat to the Edu Mob enterprise. When you read through the links below, you’ll understand why I call these people what I do.

Reading the news, and seeing what’s coming from the feds and the now-rather-disturbing Bill Gates, I see the once-noble field of public education as deathly ill – infected with myriad perverted missions and corrupted tactics. Children are no longer vulnerable beings to be protected; they’re now vehicles for obtaining money and power. Involved parents are no longer the first, best educators whose wishes are respected; they’re now annoying and irrelevant, just wallets to be tolerated until they start questioning things, whereupon they’re useful for taking the blame.

The sad fact is this: The Edu Mob sees everything that must be done to save public education as bad.

Still, the truth can be told, and there is value in that. Outing the Edu Mob can change public perception, and that can affect everything. Information is power. Providing information to the people helps return power to the people, where it rightfully belongs. (This is exactly why the Edu Mob works so hard, using our money, to keep it from happening.)

These are strong words, I know, but I arrived here the hard way. I’ve often said, “Parents should see what I see every day; then they’d know.” The links below show you a glimpse of what I’ve seen – over just a few months – of the culture of power, predation and selfishness in America’s education system. The issue in these articles isn’t money or academics; it’s power — over the children, over parents, and over the future of this country.

We aren’t losing control of America’s classrooms; we’ve already lost it. Here is just one place where it all leads: Last December, a California university student reportedly was suspended after asking college professors questions about a poem that was published in the university’s student newspaper. That poem began: “America the land robbed by the white savage; the land of the biggest genocide; the home of intolerance; the place where dreams come to die; the place of greed and slavery …”

We can’t ever persuade those in the Edu Mob that their focus is misplaced, that the money is misspent, or that they’re failing the children and endangering the country. They’re getting what they want. What we can do is tell our communities what’s going on, we can save our own children and grandchildren, and we might also be able to save someone else’s child.

Read through the links below. Feel angry about what you read. Feel scared for the country and for the children. If you haven’t already done so, talk to legislators, vote for better board directors, write letters to the editor, inform others, and volunteer to tutor a child.

Do what you can. Do it today.

[Note: If you find any broken links in this article, please let me know at wlroge@comcast.net.]

June 2013: A Maryland middle school student was suspended for 10 days for saying the word “gun” on a school bus. A deputy reportedly visited the boy’s home; threatened the boy’s father with his son’s permanent suspension if he didn’t fill out a questionnaire; and began a search of the home.

May 2013: Florida schools conducted iris scans on children, without the knowledge or consent of parents. After receiving complaints, the district said all collected data was destroyed. (Uh, huh.)

May 2013:  An Illinois high-school teacher was reprimanded for reminding students that they have a legal right to avoid self-incrimination.

May 2013: A Milwaukee school planned a cross-dressing day, where little girls were to dress as boys, and little boys were to dress as girls.

May 2013: A 5-year-old in Maryland, who brought a toy cap gun onto a bus, was reportedly interrogated by school officials until he wet his pants, and then he was suspended for 10 days.

May 2013: A 6-year-old in Massachusetts was given detention and made to apologize for bringing a tiny toy gun (slightly larger than a quarter) onto a bus.

May 2013: In Maryland, Georgia, Maine and other states – laws were proposed or passed allowing self-identifying transgender males – or all males – to use bathrooms and showers for girls or women.

May 2013: A North Carolina high school student forgot his skeet gun in his truck. Not wanting to be late for class, he called his mother and asked her to pick up the gun. He was overheard, arrested, and charged with a felony. (An administrator who previously made a similar error was charged with a misdemeanor; reports indicate that the law doesn’t treat administrators and students the same way.)

May 2013: A Massachusetts student was suspended for bringing a butter knife to school so she could cut her pear.

May 2013: A Maryland 7-year-old was suspended for nibbling a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun.

May 2013: The Florida Virtual School reportedly teaches students that terrorists join groups to kill in the name of religion because of their low-self-esteem and a need to belong. A school official was quoted as saying the lesson is based on Common Core State Standards and cannot be changed.

May 2013: Commentary: Various conservative students struggle to maintain their right to free speech.

April 2013: A Wisconsin school was designated a “Mix-It-Up Model.” In one activity, students were to “help reduce bias” by discussing the difference between natural and drug-induced highs.

April 2013: A New York middle school reportedly told girls to ask other girls for a kiss, and boys to decide which girls look like “sluts.” (In an email to a reporter, the district superintendent complained about the news coverage but did not refute these specific claims.)

April 2013: Atlanta educators were indicted in a cheating scandal.

March 2013: Glenn Beck exposed CSCOPE, a controversial education program in Texas. According to Beck’s guest panel, the CSCOPE program is anti-American, anti-Christian, politically biased, and historically inaccurate. Teachers reportedly were to sign anti-disclosure contracts and not reveal lesson plans to parents. Prompted by a photo of students wearing burqas – without parental knowledge or consent – Texas legislators debated removing CSCOPE from schools. Incredibly, it isn’t gone yet.

March 2013: A Massachusetts principal reportedly said an “honors night” could be “devastating” to other students. He canceled it in favor of a “more-inclusive” assembly.

March 2013: New York and other states compile private student information and data to give to companies. The $100 million database was reportedly funded “primarily” by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Officials say student data is “protected” by FERPA. (Perhaps the new definition of “protected” is: “We’re marketing your private information without telling you.”)

March 2013: New York school videos – reportedly based on the Common Core – favor the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights over the U.S. Constitution.

March 2013: A Texas school test said 9/11 happened because of America’s actions in the world. A Texas school worksheet on the Bill of Rights lists food and medicine as “rights.”

March 2013: Georgia teachers openly advocate in their classroom for illegal immigrants.  Students who oppose this political agenda are challenged to face their undocumented classmates.

March 2013: Commentary: Rotten to the Core: The feds’ invasive student tracking database.

February 2013: A Houston school put on an assembly that sung the praises of Barack Obama.

February 2013: A Texas curriculum told students to design a flag for a “new socialist nation” and to “use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism” on their new flag.

February 2013: A Colorado school offered extra tutoring to students … unless they’re white.

January 2013: A Philadelphia 5^th grader was reportedly scolded,  searched in front of her class, and threatened with arrest – after pulling out a paper her grandfather had shaped like a gun.

January 2013: A Pennsylvania kindergartner was suspended for 10 days and labeled a terroristic threat after playfully telling a classmate she would shoot her with her “Hello Kitty” bubble gun. The kindergartner’s friend was reportedly listed as being the “victim” of the incident.

January 2013: A high school teacher stomped on the American flag in class and reportedly said the flag is just a piece of cloth that doesn’t mean anything. In May, the teacher received an $85,000 settlement.

January 2013: A Texas student refused to wear a GPS tracking badge. That student was expelled. She sued the district, but she lost the court case.

January 2013: A Wisconsin school reportedly taught in a “white privilege class” that white people are oppressors.

December 2012: The Florida State Board of Education planned to set racially based academic goals for students. This plan was met with outrage from Hispanic and black citizens.

October 2012: Minnesota schools reportedly closed for a few days so teachers could play with dolls, talk about the upcoming election, and learn how to teach about Islam to students.

October 2012: A Philadelphia student wearing a Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan T-shirt was reportedly told to leave her classroom.  The student said the teacher likened wearing that shirt to wearing a KKK shirt.

October 2012: Florida schools set up voter registration drives in schools that reportedly advocated solely for Democrats and provided pro-Barack Obama commentary.

June 2012: Bill Gates is funding wrist sensors to measure and collect data on children’s physical reactions in the classroom. “Gates officials” reportedly said they hope the sensors will become a “common classroom tool.”

I know. It’s terribly grim out there. I hope you’re motivated now to do what you can to jerk a knot in the Edu Mob’s chain. If we don’t work together on this, then this country and our children really have lost it all.

Laurie H. Rogers has a bachelor’s degree in mass communication and a master’s in interpersonal communication, emphasizing the evaluation of argumentation and logic. In 2001, she founded Safer Child, Inc., a nonprofit child advocacy information resource. In 2007, she narrowed her advocacy to public education, and in 2010, she founded Focus on the Square™, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving American K-12 education.

Laurie is the author of the blog “Betrayed,” located at http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/. Her book Betrayed: How the Education Establishment Has Betrayed America and What You Can Do about It (Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2011) is now available from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Besides serving on the executive committee for Where’s the Math?, Laurie has a background in finance, journalism and child advocacy. She has volunteered in schools – tutoring children in literacy and math, and teaching chess, argumentation and knitting. She lives in Spokane with her husband, daughter and two cats.

Contact Laurie Rogers at wlroge@comcast.net.

The post Laurie Rogers: Public Education’s Culture of Power appeared first on Education News.

Schools have made strides in catering to the needs of special education students, and one has been realizing that parents are an important piece of the puzzle , reports Gil Smart on Lancaster Online.

All students are entitled by law to an “appropriate” education at public expense in the least restrictive environment. Many parents are satisfied by the efforts made by their local school districts, but some advocate constantly for improved conditions that best meet the needs of their children.

At one time, kids with special needs tended to be “warehoused” in separate classrooms or schools. That began to change with the advent of federal legislation, and a landmark Pennsylvania Supreme Court lawsuit that mandated school districts to include more special needs kids in “regular” education classrooms.

Parents have also progressed over the years. Parents used to have a harder time accepting the label of “special education student” for their child, but now they are increasingly comfortable with the classification if it ensures that they can get the needs of their child fulfilled.

In many states including Pennsylvania, every special education student gets a IEP or individualized education program — a written agreement between the parents and the school specifying the program and services a child will need. It also includes a description of goals to be met, special help the child may need in the classroom and information on how the child’s progress will be monitored.

It is a team effort to give these students the education they require, and parents are an integral — and arguably, the most important –part of that team. Usually there is agreement on the goals and accommodations for the students, but not always.

“I think parents often feel like their opinions are not valued as much as they should be,” said Carol Eshleman, who co-chairs the IU 13 Right to Education Task Force, for parents of students with special needs in Lancaster and Lebanon counties.

Some parents are afraid their child won’t get the necessary attention or resources needed so they opt for a specialized school. The school district usually covers the cost of tuition and transportation. Further complicating things, some think that the school districts are bearing the burden of service costs that should be covered by health insurance providers.

Advocates and parents believe that early intervention, inclusion in a regular classroom, and staff willing to work with parents can aid in lowering costs for school districts in the long run and provide better for special education students — and make for happier, more satisfied families.

“There are many things that can be put into place really without much cost,” Eshleman said. “Something like preferred seating in a classroom, having the student sit up close, or using a tape recorder to tape the lesson so a student can review it later, to using a computer if (the student) is having trouble with writing.”

The post Parents, Schools Working Together to Improve Special Education appeared first on Education News.

Study after study has shown that parental involvement is one of the biggest factors that contribute to a students’ academic success. Politicians, including President Barack Obama, are calling on parents to take more of an active role in their local schools by becoming involved with their children’s education, but defining and enacting “parent involvement” beyond just using the phrase has proven difficult.

According to a number of recent surveys, Americans strongly believe in the importance of parental involvement with 78% agreeing that parents contribute more to their children’s academic success than do schools. However, while finding someone to disagree that parents have a role to play in education is difficult, finding someone to define what “parental involvement” really means is even tougher.

But what exactly do we mean by “parental involvement”? Are we talking about traditional parental roles — the moms and dads who check on homework and report cards and support the schools from time to time by helping out with clubs, sports, and bake sales? Or are we talking about parents as change agents — citizens who push school reform forward by voting for candidates who share their views on education and challenging local officials to make sure their schools have world-class standards, top-notch principals and teachers, and sufficient funding to do the job?

According to a study published by the Kouffman Foundation, people can’t seem to agree on what kind of parental aid is optimal. The study was limited to the area surrounding Kansas City, but its findings apply to other areas around the country.

In the study, about 30% of parents feel that they should play a more active role in how their schools are run – including weighing in on decisions such as program selections and administrator hiring. Roughly 25% of parents polled believe that they should occupy a more traditional role like joining the PTA and volunteering time at the school.

About 1 in 5 of the parents were in a third group we called the “help seekers,” and this is the group that may prove to be public education’s biggest challenge. These parents are concerned about their own children’s learning, yet admit that they either aren’t very comfortable or don’t have time to become more involved at their children’s schools or as education advocates. These parents are often more critical of their schools, even as they seem to be looking for more guidance from those schools on how to work with their children at home to help them succeed.

States like California have gone well beyond the bake sale by enacting so-called parent trigger laws that allow families who have children in a failing school to band together and take steps from replacing individual administrators to shutting down the school and converting it into a charter.

The post What Does Parental Involvement Really Mean for Schools? appeared first on Education News.

Educators are finding that kids aren’t coming to school prepared to learn because they are not getting proper rest, discipline, and attention from their parents.

According to Graeme Paton in the The Telegraph, in order to help parents, Britain will be handing out leaflets to remind them to make sure kids get the proper amount of sleep, are well fed, have time set aside for homework, have quality time spent with them and come to school prepared with the proper supplies.

The campaign will be called “Ready to Learn Everyday” and will be led by the National Association of Head Teachers. It will consist of a series of four leaflets, with the first including information about ‘school readiness’.

School heads are finding that kids generally are no longer “school ready”. Particularly, children in their first year are not able to communicate properly in school due to lack of communication at home. NAHT president Bernadette Hunter said this is due to parents’ work demands combined with over-exposure to technology such as the television, video games and the internet.

She says that while many of the ‘unprepared’ pupils are from impoverished backgrounds, that this is also a problem with children who come from middle class families.

 ”Increasing numbers of children are coming to school not prepared to learn. Lots of head teachers are reporting children staying up too late at night, not getting enough sleep, coming into school tired and unable to concentrate and, in some cases, not having a proper breakfast.”

“We also have a minority of children coming from families that lack the structure to make sure that the children have everything they need to bring to school like their reading books, homework and PE kit.”

Not getting the proper amount of sleep is an especially crucial problem that needs to be addressed since studies have shown that sleep deprivation has impacted academic achievement levels worldwide. Research from Boston College showed the problem is most prevalent in richer countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom.

Parents tend to underestimate the impact of an insufficient amount of sleep on academic  performance. Lack of sleep can have the same repercussions as lack of food, leading to lack of concentration and reduced ability to learn.

In some cases teachers have had to alter their lesson plans because students are not well rested and cannot keep up with the pace of the class, negatively affecting the entire class’s progress.

The post Schools Enlist Parents to Improve Students’ Readiness Every Day appeared first on Education News.

A trial appears to be imminent in the lawsuit brought by parents of Morgan Hill special education students that could see services for disabled students in California substantially expand in both scope and cost. Parents are claiming that the state is not doing enough to live up to the guarantees made by the government that special needs students receive a free and appropriate education, according to the Mercury News report.

Plaintiffs – now including parents of special education students throughout the whole of California – are alleging that the quality of education provided to the disabled in the state is abysmal and that the systems in place to identify students with special needs and provide them with additional help is inadequate.

Parents also claim that they’re being consistently left out of the process to determine what are the best educational options for their children. Even when individual districts blatantly fail in their obligations, according to the parents bringing the lawsuit, asking the state to intervene has been pointless.

A victory could possibly force districts to offer more programs to more children with physical, mental and social-emotional disabilities. As it is now, parents claim, districts put up unreasonable challenges to those seeking special services for their children.

“I fought the district for 10 years,” trying to overcome denial of requests for services, McNulty said. “I believe it’s systemic in Morgan Hill. There are a lot of great teachers there. But they don’t realize that what they’re doing is noncompliant” with the law.

Providing additional services for special needs students has been required since four decades ago when Congress made those services mandatory. Schools were ordered to begin testing students to identify those who need special services and then make arrangements to offer them.

It was not a mandate districts around California enthusiastically embraced, mainly due to the fact that accommodations for special education students are typically expensive and require hiring of trained personnel.

he federal government requires the program but pays only a fraction of its share; the state also pays only a portion, leaving districts to pick up the rest while expressing resentment about the “encroachment” on their tight budgets. And the expense can be considerable. San Jose Unified spokesman Paul Higgins says the district budgeted $42 million this school year for special education, or 14 percent of the operating budget.

Plaintiffs believe that the state refusing to enforce the disability education mandate is the chief issue in the lawsuit. Although parents can complain to the state when they feel their district is not meeting the special education requirements, in the past, the California Department of Education has sided with districts the majority of the time.

The post Parents Fight, Sue for Special Education in California appeared first on Education News.

A growing number of parents feel that schools are not taking advantage of an exceptional opportunity when they decline to make use of mobile devices sported by a growing number of students in classes.

A new report published by Grunwald Associates and the Learning First Alliance finds that nearly one in four K-12 students uses some kind of mobile digital device at least occasionally, and many parents feel that the technology could be key to breaching the digital divide that threatens to separate low-income students from the higher-income peers when it comes to educational opportunities.

The report shows that there’s less of a link between family income and use of devices like smartphones than researchers expected. Although kids from low-income families were less likely to have access to or use such devices, nearly 20% of students who did not use them came from families where parents were users.

The cause of non-use in those cases is “some other reason that probably revolves around the attitudes of parents and, by extension, the students toward the smartphone,” said Peter Grunwald, the president and founder of Grunwald Associates, a research firm based in Bethesda, Md., known for its work on ed-tech related projects. “The ubiquity of mobile technology in everyday life I think comes through loud and clear in this study. Families own multiple devices, even families that are not well off.”

The number of available devices at home was found to be strongly linked with income. Homes where family income was under $25,000 owned on average 3.3 mobile digital gadgets while households with annual income of $150,000 or more had nearly twice as many.

In terms of support, a majority of responding parents saying they believed mobile devices could be positive educational tools for their children. “Majorities of parents believe that mobile devices and applications offer fun, engaging ways of learning, connecting and communicating,” the report states. “When it comes to mobile devices and education, most parents believe that these devices open up learning opportunities, benefit students’ learning and can engage students in the classroom. Many parents also believe that mobiles and apps teach academic skills and content.”

Parents appeared to be ahead of their school districts when it came to supporting to the use tools like smartphones, tablets and laptops in their schools. Although parents of students attending schools where such devices were used were more likely to embrace their use for educational purposes, support levels among parents were on average higher than among school district officials, teachers and other school employees.

Parents of students in grades K-2 were more likely to vouch for the effectiveness of mobile education than parents of students in grades 3-12. Although the study did not directly explore the reasons why parents of younger students showed that response, Grunwald said the discrepancy goes beyond parents of younger children simply being younger themselves, and thus more tech savvy.

The post Survey: Parents Want Schools to Use Mobile Devices More appeared first on Education News.

Charter school supporters in Chicago, including parents of the students enrolled in them, are banding together to fight the perception that they’re the bad guy in the ongoing fight surrounding school closures in the city, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The group – called Charter Parents United – was formed in large part to counter the allegations made by the Chicago Teachers Union that they should bear the majority of the blame for the financial crisis gripping the local school system.

Mariana Chavez, one of the group’s organizers, believes that this kind of advocacy has become a necessity in light of CTU attacks. She said that a that a louder voice was needed to make the case to the city and its residents as to why charters deserve funding equity with the traditional public schools.

The catalyst appears to be the city’s plan to close down more than 50 elementary and high school programs because of underenrollment. In the subsequent fight over the plan, teachers and parents of students at effected schools have turned the finger on charters.

In response, district chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett has promised that no school closed this year will be handed over to a charter. CPS officials have also indicated they will place charters under greater academic scrutiny, gradually closing two underperforming charter schools and putting six others on a watch list.

Charters already have backing from several advocacy groups, including Stand for Children, INCS and New Schools for Chicago. Advocacy training from those groups, as well as by charter network operators, got charter parents more involved and eventually led to the formation of Charter Parents United, according to Beth Purvis, CEO of Chicago International Charter School.

Although the group is new, it can already count on a lot of practical and financial support from a lot of heavy hitters in the school reform movement. Included among them is the public relations firm ASGK Public Strategies, founded by President Barack Obama’s chief political guru David Axelrod.

According to Purvis, the group’s chief goal is to provide the public with a more balanced view. Until now, the feeling was that they were hearing too much from charter school opponents and not enough from those who have been helped by their growing presence in the city.

On Wednesday, the board will vote on a number of matters involving charters, including new locations for charter campuses and the addition of seats at existing charter schools. CPS will allow two new charter school operators to come into the district this year.

The fact that half of Wednesday’s board agenda pertains to charter-related business was noted by the CTU.

The post Charter Parents Form Advocacy Group in Chicago appeared first on Education News.

The college admissions game is not for the faint of heart, and if forewarned is forearmed, then Parent College – a program started by Partnership for Los Angeles Schools – hopes to put power into the hands of parents who have never had a college experience of their own so they can help their kids achieve their higher education dreams.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Parent College is an unusual effort spread over 15 Los Angeles Unified campuses. The group sponsoring the program was founded in part by the current Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and and it takes as part of its mission a goal of undoing the myth that working class parents care less about their children’s education.

Some of the information imparted in the Parent College workshops might seem pretty basic to those who’ve already been there. Participants learn how to read school report cards and get an idea of what college life is like on a day-to-day basis. Yet there appears to a be a need for exactly this kind of information. More than 800 people participated in the program’s annual college tour this year – a record .

Martinez is typical of the parents the program seeks to help. One of 14 children raised on a small farm outside the town of Irapuato in Guanajuato state in Mexico, she had no formal education as a child, and was 15 before she learned how to read on her own.

“Every so often, my father would enroll us in school, but we didn’t have money for notebooks or even a pencil,” Martinez said. Embarrassed, she would soon drop out, she said.

Education was not a priority for the family. Instead, Martinez and her sisters were expected by their father to “do women’s work,” she said — cooking, cleaning, and more of the same later for their husbands and children.

The American attitude to education filtered into her family slowly, too. Her youngest siblings were all enrolled in school, and although Martinez herself was then too old to benefit, a high school diploma followed by a college degree was a dream she held for her own kids.

Yet the oldest of her five kids never even considered this path, choosing employment right after high school like a lot of their uncles and aunts did. It wasn’t until her third child started showing real academic promise that Martinez got specific about her goals for him.

In Sergio’s junior year, his Advanced Placement literature teacher told him about Parent College, and Martinez enrolled. In the monthly classes, she learned about college requirements and how to apply for financial aid.

Even after months of classes, participants in the program sometimes remain befuddled by the complexities of the U.S. education system. “It’s uncharted territory for them,” said Graciela Fernandez, director of the Student Outreach and Retention Center at UC Irvine.

The post ‘Parent College’ Helps First-Gen Parents Navigate Higher Ed appeared first on Education News.