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April 1996
| Volume 53 | Number 7
Working Constructively with Families
Hopeful Signs
Ron Brandt
On Our Changing Family Values: A Conversation with David Elkind
Marge Scherer
Child psychologist David Elkind describes the postmodern family, what he calls "the permeable family." Permeable families include those with two working parents, single-parent families, adoptive families, remarried families, as well as more traditional families coping with the challenges of the 90s. Economic forces and changing social patterns have made families modify traditional values that have proved overly sentimental in today's world, he says. They look instead for new values to live by. He describes, for instance, how the ideal of romantic love has been replaced with consensual love; maternal instinct by the ideal of shared parenting; and domesticity by a new urbanity. The value of togetherness has been supplanted by a focus on autonomy. With little job security today, parents must devote tremendous time to working and refurbishing their skills, forcing children to be autonomous as well. Elkind also explains why children today are often thought to be more competent than they really are (a defense mechanism for adults who need children to be autonomous and cannot entirely control their children's access to the vicarious experience the media provide). Schools too contribute to the stress placed on children, Elkind says. He mentions a number of detrimental practices ( for example, requiring children to learn skills and subjects for which they are not developmentally ready). He ends on a hopeful note, however, as he notes a new interest in community and a move toward a more balanced family, one that accommodates the needs of children, as well as adult men and women.
How Teamwork Transformed a Neighborhood
Martie Theleen Lubetkin
It's no secret that when parents and educators cooperate, students are more likely to succeed. And when community members and business people also get involved, everyone benefits. This is the story of how Pio Pico Elementary School—a brand new school in Santa Ana, California, barrio—developed such a coalition. It all began when parents, concerned about gang activity and drug trafficking near the school, formed a School Safety Committee. That small step marked the beginning of an effort which grew to include community organizations, business owners, and other residents. Their work has transformed the community and helped create a school where children are safe and free to learn and achieve.
Building Bridges Between Generations
John G. Conyers
In suburban Cook County, Illinois, Community Consolidated School District 15 has tapped senior citizens for the mutual enrichment of two generations. The district's two ongoing programs are Senior Exchange and Generations Exchange. Participants in Senior Exchange—whose ages range from 55 to 91—help students with reading, writing, or math; and work in computer labs, resource centers, lunchrooms, offices, and classrooms. They are paid an hourly rate based on the minimum wage. Generations Exchange, a less formal program, involves several hundred seniors in various volunteer activities each year. The district has also launched: a Foster Grandparents program, which links unrelated children and seniors in simulated grandparent-grandchild relationships; Computer Friends, in which students teach seniors computer skills (or vice versa); and an Intergenerational Arts Fest showcasing artwork and music performed jointly by children and seniors.
Full-Service Schools
Joy G. Dryfoos
Ideally, the school educates children, and families raise them. In disadvantaged communities where families are having difficulties fulfilling these obligations, full-service schools are emerging. This term refers to collaborations between school and community people to provide quality education and comprehensive social services for children under one roof. These home-grown products are appearing as community schools, lighted school-houses called Beacons, school-based clinics, and family resource centers. In this comprehensive article, the author discusses promising examples of the concept around the country; factors necessary for success, such as adequate space and a committed staff; and barriers to the process, such as funding, governance issues, and lack of continuity. Support is strong for "one-stop centers where the educational, physical, psychological, and social requirements of students and their families are addressed in a rational, holistic fashion." If full-service schools are to have a future, however, even the strongest advocates require proof that centralizing services has merit to children and their families. Early evaluation reports from the more comprehensive community-schools are promising, and further research should garner more support for the full-service concept.
Linking Families, Building Communities
R. Clarke Fowler and Kathy Klebs Corley
Connections with the world beyond school are important to Saltonstall Elementary School in Salem, Massachusetts. The magnet school (specializing in science and technology) has initiated numerous outreach strategies to improve both the quantity and the quality of family connections with the school, with service providers, and with the community. Two aspects of the school's organization—multiage grouping and a year-round format—result in teachers, children, and families spending more time together. The school invites family involvement through schoolwide celebrations that mark the end of each of its six learning sessions. Families enjoy them, as their high attendance indicates. Parents also receive a weekly newsletter. At Saltonstall School's large, comfortable Parent Center, a full-time paid parent coordinator is on hand to meet with parents and refer them to any needed services. The school also builds strong ties between its families and the community. One example is the Friday Club, which invites community partners to come to the school for two hours every Friday morning to teach students how to build doll houses, learn Spanish, design T-shirts, or learn martial arts, for example. During this block of time, teachers cooperatively plan lessons. Community businesses also invite students to visit their sites of operation. In these and other ways, the school creates community in its building.
The Great Family Network
Betty L. Dixon
Care teams, made up of volunteers from local churches and synagogues, are helping special-needs families in a Florida county to solve personal and financial problems so that their children have a greater chance of success in school. It all started when the Chief Judge of the First Judicial Circuit of Florida formed a task force to address the plight of children in Escambia County, an area of rising poverty and juvenile delinquency. Within the education committee, a small group of people "set out to change debilitating environments by forging new links between religion and education." The author describes how this promising initiative began and is still evolving to help children by extending a hand to their families. Care teams from participating churches and synagogues donate time, money, and love to work with needy families over extended time periods. In one case, a care team helped a mother obtain child care for her younger children, bought school supplies and clothing for the older children, and helped her find a job. What lies ahead for The Great Family Network? "With some 500 churches in the county," the author says, "our goal is to create a caring community for every special-needs family."
One Family at a Time
Karen A. McGee
"Our reason for starting this project," the author explains, "was to help legally homeless parents be their children's best teachers." Armed with limited funds, the small but committed staff recruited families from the motels and trailer parks along West Fourth Street in Reno, Nevada, as well as from a homeless shelter. In addition to helping with their literacy needs, they wanted to give these families "a warm meal and two hours in a safe place." As with the best laid plans of mice and men, however, their plans didn't go quite as expected. In fact, the families taught them a few lessons about making a literacy project work. One important discovery, says the author, "was that human relationships must precede academic pursuits." The staff's flexibility enabled them to revise the program as they went along. The author decribes all the frustrations and joys of starting a family literacy project.
How Parent Liaisons Connect Families to School
Joan Montgomery Halford
At a Fairfax County, Virginia, elementary school, where 20 home languages are represented, multilingual parent liaisons serve a vital link between school and community. The school started the outreach effort after staff observed more and more students coming to school without some of their basic needs being met. Over several years, what was once a part-time position is now three positions to meet the needs of the sizable Spanish- and Vietnamese-speaking communities. "We handle situations in the home that are not severe enough for the social worker and beyond the realistic scope of teachers," explains one of the liaisons. The nature of assistance varies considerably—from helping a father sign up for ESL classes to handling more serious family problems—as does the length of time the liaisons work with individual families. The liaisons even conduct programs on such topics as parenting skills and financial planning. "In homes served by the program," says the author, "parents have become more involved at school, and children have improved their attendance and made achievement gains in reading and writing." Although threatened by budget cuts, the parent liaison program is earning high marks from teachers and staff.
The Best Practice Project: Building Parent Partnerships in Chicago
Harvey Daniels
From its base at National-Louis University in Evanston, the Best Practice Project is working in a dozen Chicago schools to involve parents in supporting student-centered, constructivist classrooms. Chicago's 1988 school reform law mandated extensive parental involvement, giving parents the power to hire and fire principals, spend discretionary money, and guide instructional programs. Far from being a retrograde influence, Daniels says, most parents are potential school reformers. To surface this latent reformist spirit, project members developed weekly workshops that immerse parents in the same kind of constructivist, workshop-style inquiry their children are experiencing. Best Practice Network schools include Jenner School in the Cabrini-Green housing project, where family history became the basis for a new social studies program. At Washington Irving, a K–8 school on Chicago's West Side, parent involvement has helped raise student achievement significantly. This fall, project members will start an alternative school of their own, the Best Practice High School. It will include a cross section of 140 students from the network's elementary schools.
Involving Parents, Avoiding Gridlock
Anne Wescott Dodd
For parents to accept change, schools and school systems must involve them at the outset. If not, community conflict and even failure may result. Maine educator Anne Wescott Dodd reports on the experience of that state's Learning Results Task Force in developing standards and implementing new teaching strategies. She describes the varied ways the task force invited community input and involvement, offers advice for other educators, and points out potential pitfalls. "The changes taking place in the classroom today are new for everyone," Dodd says, "Educators must listen to the critics as well as the supporters before they can determine what all students should learn and how we can help them succeed." Includes a questionnaire: Assess Your School's PPPQ (Parent Perspectives and Participation Quotient).
Creating a Learner's Bill of Rights—Vermont's Town Meeting Approach
Steven J. Gross
"Vermont's town meeting tradition is alive and well," says the author, "and helping to determine the future of curriculum development for the half million residents of our state." Here's how the ball got rolling. As leader of the Common Core of Learning project, begun in fall 1990, the author arranged for focus forums in order to turn over the task of state curriculum development to the people. At the forums, the plan was to invite everyone to participate, not let anyone dominate, and to center on the needs of learners. The forums succeeded in their mission. Using ideas from "the people," the Common Core committee came up with four Vital Results, which represented the skills, knowledge, and abilities that Vermont citizens believe all learners need: Communications, Reasoning and Problem Solving, Personal Development, and Social Responsibility. Next, the committee worked to link those results and three interdisciplinary areas: Science/Mathematics/Technology, Arts/Humanities, and History/Social Science. Out of these efforts came rigorous content standards, student performance standards, and essential learning experiences in the three areas. In August 1993, when the Vermont State Board of Education adopted the Common Core, this standard, set by the people of Vermont, became the cornerstone of the state's educational system. The author concludes by looking at future challenges—for example, keeping the Common Core up to date, and continuing community involvement.
Addressing Parents' Concerns Over Curriculum Reform
Margaret R. Meyer, Mary L. Delagardelle and James A. Middleton
When the Ames (Iowa) Community School District field-tested an innovative middle school mathematics curriculum, it anticipated misgivings from some of the parents at its nine schools. But by assessing and addressing their concerns early, the district made parents its allies in reform. The curriculum, called "Mathematics in Context," is being developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in collaboration with the Freudenthal Institute in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The emphasis is on helping students develop flexible ways of thinking about numbers and number relationships by solving problems in any of several possible ways. District officials found that parents had five types of concerns, and they addressed them each in a different way. For example, for parents who wanted to know how they could assist in implementing the program (the least serious concern), they organized family math nights. With parents who worried about the program's implementation, they discussed staff development and explained how both student progress and teacher progress were being monitored. And for parents who were alarmed over the departure from traditional schooling (the most serious concern), they attempted to arrive at compromises for their children.
How Schools Can Recruit Hard-to-Reach Parents
Julie Z. Aronson
Hawaii's success with school-community-based management shows that there are many ways to involve parents from diverse cultural and language backgrounds in the life of the school. Aronson's San Francisco-based research team, WestED, studied the first nine elementary schools in Hawaii to implement on-site management. Their settings include poor inner-city neighborhoods, upper middle-class suburbs, and rural areas. Within five years of implementation, parent participation in the schools increased by an average of 45 percent. One major reason was that the schools overcame language, literacy, and cultural barriers. For example, one school developed a family literacy program, combining early childhood education with adult basic education and training. And all schools relied more on phone calls and home visits than on written materials, enlisting parents or community members to recruit other parents. The schools were also sensitive to parents' feelings of fear or intimidation—all made parents feel welcome and comfortable by establishing a Parent Community Networking Center in the building.
Listening to Parents of Children with Disabilities
Linda Davern
As more and more children with disabilities join general education classes, it's important for teaching teams to build productive, or strengthen existing, partnerships, with their families. Based on her in-depth interviews with 15 families (21 parents) whose children were fully included in general education programs, the author offers 10 suggestions. For examples, parents asked that teachers see individuals and challenge stereotypes, persevere in building partnerships, use everyday language, talk with parents about how they want to share information. and create effective forums for planning and problem solving.
When Students Lead Parent-Teacher Conferences
Lyn Le Countryman and Merrie Schroeder
When their traditional parent-teacher conferences in the fall were more frustrating than helpful, these teachers looked to their middle school students for a more student-centered model. Teachers at Malcolm Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls, Iowa, adopted student-led conferences. Students collected items all semester for their portfolios and selected key items to review with their parents. Rather than discussing their child's performance with an advisor, parents met directly with their child, while the advisor only monitored the meeting. Students conducted the sessions, pointing out their achievements, areas needing more work and study, and how they could improve. Even though students were nervous, one-third felt very good during the conference. Only 15 percent did not like the conference format. Three of every four parents preferred the student-led format to the traditional conference.
The Power of Portfolios
Elizabeth A. Hebert and Laurie Schultz
Student portfolios are a new tool being used in schools to help teachers and students assess development. At the Crow Island School in Winnetka, Ill., students have been creating portfolios for the last seven years. In this article by principal Elizabeth Hebert, she explains how teachers use "substantive conversation" to get a child to make connections between prior and present learning. She also tells how older students help younger children to prepare for "Portfolio Evenings," a time when students have the chance to show their parents the fruits of their work. Finally, Herbert interviews 5th grader Laurie Schultz. They prepare for a presentation they are making to other teachers and review Laurie's archive. During this exchange, Laurie discovers the progress she has made and Hebert comes to fully appreciate the value of portfolio keeping.
On Finding Common Ground with Religious Conservatives: A Conversation with Charles Haynes
Ron Brandt
Charles Haynes, scholar in residence at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, says conservative Christians feel alienated from the public schools because the schools have been silent about religion, and conservatives perceive this silence as hostility. He claims that religion has a role in public schools, but that we must get it right. Historically public schools have done it wrong in two ways: first with Protestant dominance and more recently, avoiding religion as much as possible. Haynes says that under the First Amendment, public schools may not inculcate nor inhibit religion. That means schools must protect the religious liberty rights of students and that religion must be represented fairly in the curriculum. Haynes explains the Common Ground process by which groups of parents, citizens and educators come together under ground rules derived from the First Amendment to seek agreement on issues on which they are deeply divided. He insists that by following these democratic principles, educators and citizens can resolve 90 percent of the religion-in-school issues.
Resolving Conflicts Over Values
Jan Vondra
Public school officials and conservative Christians have found common ground in the Snowline Joint Unified School District in the southern California town of Phelan. As an example, Vondra, the district's assistant superintendent, describes a controversy over a self-esteem program called "Tribes." In response to parents' complaints, a parent-teacher subcommittee was formed to examine the curriculum, and both constituents agreed it needed revising. Another example is the district's establishment of a separate K–6 school—the Heritage School—in response to ongoing conservative political activity. In general, the district encourages the participation of every segment of the community in its policy decisions, and it recognizes that parents have the primary responsibility for the upbringing (and education) of their children. District officials also subscribe to the goals of the 3Rs project (a joint endeavor of the California County Superintendents Educational Services Association and The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University): (1) to return to the three Rs of religious liberty: rights, responsibility, and respect; (2) to prepare educators to teach about religions and cultures in ways that are constitutionally permissible and educationally sound; and (3) to use these First Amendment principles in learning to live with cultural, racial, or religious differences and in mediating disputes.
Parents' Rights—Society's Imperatives: A Balancing Act
Arnold Burron
Parents' rights and society's needs sometimes collide, with the battle often fought in public schools. Yet many school officials avoid acknowledging their antagonists' concerns. This is a mistake, says Burron, who contends that educators can defuse conflict and even reach consensus by explicitly recognizing parents' concerns when formulating school policy. He recounts four news stories that illustrate the two deeply-rooted, often conflicting ideologies: the belief that parents' rights are inviolable and the school has no right to impose any curriculum, content, or requirement that parents object to; and the belief that "the government—that is, society—must demand that every citizen be required to learn certain basic content and be subjected to certain basic requirements." Among Burron's recommendations to school officials: (1) adopt opt-in policies, requiring parental notification and permission for inclusion of students in potentially controversial lessons; (2) allow parents to help determine curriculum and assessment criteria; and (3) come up with a statement that balances parents' rights with the school's imperatives.
What Are You Teaching My Son?
Allan H. Bloom
Educators caught up "in the latest grand scheme or socially well-intentioned idea" should start paying attention to parents' concerns, Bloom warns, citing the experience of his 12-year-old son, Phillip, as a case in point. An excellent student who wants to learn, Phillip, he says, is being de-motivated by a curriculum that sacrifices factual learning to "higher order thinking," and individual academic achievement to social concerns. Seemingly intent on restructuring society, teachers use his son to help those who are less gifted. But "mixed ability grouping and cooperative learning—the sine qua nons of contemporary public education—do not equip graduates to succeed in the modern world," Bloom argues. He exhorts teachers to challenge their students and help them reach their full intellectual potential; and to ignore the latest educational fads, instead insisting on "individual responsibility and performance."
Celebrating Diversity
Aretha B. Pigford
Reflecting on her first year as a teacher, the author discusses some of the challenges that can deter novices from pursuing their careers. In her case, a cultural gap between her and her high school students was a major obstacle until she learned "the value of making meaning to students, the importance of hanging in there and not giving up, and the danger of narrow-mindedness." She argues the importance of providing support for new teachers in the form of mentors. Eventually, the author found a way to excite her students about learning and has been an educator—despite continuing challenges—for more than 26 years.
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