GreatSchools: Bill's Blog

Obama’s call for parent involvement

Since President Barack Obama assumed office two months ago, he's put forth an ambitious political agenda. High on his list: Improving education and urging parents to do their part.

As the president told a joint session of Congress last month, "There is no program or policy that can substitute for a mother or father who will attend those parent-teacher conferences or help with the homework or turn off the TV, put away the video games, read to their child. Responsibility for our children's education must begin at home."

This is a vital message — one that is at the core of the GreatSchools mission — and we're proud to be spreading it. Today we're telling the more than 1 million parents who subscribe to our newsletters about where the $115 billion in stimulus funding for education will go, how to read with their child and the top 10 things they can do now to heed the president's call of parent involvement. Here are some of the articles we're highlighting for our readers:

• Stimulus Bill Offers Schools Much-Needed Relief
• How to Read With Your Child
• Manage Your Child's Screen Time
• What Makes a Great Parent?

I'm interested in hearing from you. What do you think of the education allocations in the stimulus package? How should parents step up their involvement in their child's education?

Obama's address to Congress

On Tuesday night’s address to Congress, President Obama used the opportunity to hammer home a theme that was prominent in his campaign: Parent involvement in education. Here’s what he said during the speech:

“In the end, there is no program or policy that can substitute for a parent, for a mother or father who will attend those parent-teacher conferences, or help with homework, or turn off the TV, put away the video games, read to their child. I speak to you not just as a president, but as a father, when I say that 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.” [link]

The GreatSchools team is thrilled with this type of message to the American people coming from our new president. After all, an involved parent is the leading indicator of a child’s success in school — above any other element — and it is clear that improving education is a shared responsibility among government, schools, teachers, kids and parents.

Do you think that President Obama is addressing the right themes with respect to overhauling our educational system? I’m interested to hear from you.

The Obama inauguration: In search of the teachable moments

The citizen in me is in awe about how well we transfer executive power in our country. No matter who is leaving and who is coming in, the rhythm of the transition demonstrates that the system we have constructed and the values that under gird it are more important than any individual.

The optimist in me can't help but be thrilled by the prospect of a young, vibrant leader who calls on us to participate in our nation's renewal:

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job, which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

The educator in me can't help think about how we can make use of this moment to engage our children and ourselves in the challenges and decisions we face as a nation. Here are three ideas for how to do that. 

Discuss:

1. How will the Obama presidency impact the experience of African Americans and the quality of race relations in our country?

To get you thinking about how to raise this issue with your kids, you might want to read a wonderful roundtable discussion that took place on Monday with civil rights and other African American community leaders.

The Reverend Joseph Lowery of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, who gave the benediction at the inauguration yesterday, spoke about how this moment is the fulfillment of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream that someday we will live in a nation where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Charlayne Hunter-Gault said that while everyone knows about MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech, many young people "don't know the context of it, and they don't know the essential message of it, which was about economics and getting poor people out of poverty and into the mainstream." In that regard, the panelists agreed, we have a long, long way to go.

So ask your kids: What does this moment mean for our nation? How can we best take advantage of it? Use the moment to teach them something about the civil rights movement. And to be taught by them about how we can live better together.

2. Where did the ideas in Obama's inaugural speech come from?  Whose ideas was he building on? Who was he responding to?

This one is for high school students.

CNN has a good piece on the sources of Obama's rhetoric. Check it out and use the opportunity to brush up on Thomas Paine. Can you or your kids find the references to Shakespeare? The Bible? Where in the speech is Obama responding to this passage in Ronald Reagan's inaugural address: "Government is not the solution to the problem; government is the problem."

And back to Paine: In what ways are the problems we face similar to those faced by the troops at Valley Forge? In what ways are they different?

3. Obama called for a new "era of responsibility." What does that really mean in practice for our nation — and for each of our families?

Near the end of the speech, Obama called on each of us to take part in national renewal:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world; duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

Talk with your kids about: What does this really mean for each of us? For our family? For our nation? What are our duties? What do we have to do differently than we did before? What sacrifices will that entail? Who is going to do what by when? What about that will be hard? What will feel good? How will we hold each other accountable?

And if you're looking for inspiration on this topic — and one of the best critical reviews of Obama's speech that I have found — check out this commentary by Gordon Stewart, a speechwriter for former president Jimmy Carter.

Recognizing top performing high schools

What makes a great high school? Which schools are among the top performers in each state?

Today, we released our list of Top Five High Schools by state — developed in collaboration with BusinessWeek. We highlight five schools in each state based on the following criteria:

• Top Academic Performance (overall)
• Top Academic Performance (among low-income schools)
• Most Improved - Academic Performance
• Parents' Choice - Public School
• Parents' Choice - Private School

BusinessWeek wrote an article and produced a video.

This collaboration is notable because it's the first time we've seen national “Parents' Choice” awards for both public and private schools. And it gives us a meaningful opportunity to reach out locally! Here's what Mike Schrek, the principal of Shenango High School in Pennsylvania, said about his school being recognized as "Most Improved":

“We are extremely honored to be recognized by GreatSchools and BusinessWeek as one of the Top 5 High Schools in Pennsylvania. Being recognized as a great school validates our past efforts as well as motivates everyone in our entire educational community to keep striving for academic excellence.”

What's your experience? Tell us what makes your school great!

Arne Duncan for America’s Schools

Nice job, President-elect Obama. Congratulations, Arne Duncan!

Arne Duncan is a great choice for Secretary of Education because he's been in the trenches of school improvement for seven years as CEO of Chicago Public Schools. Like Barack Obama, he's a pragmatist, not an ideologue. He's demonstrated a deep commitment and passion for improving opportunities for disadvantaged young people. He knows that improving schools means involving parents.

As Obama said in his announcement today, we have been "stuck in the same tired debates that have stymied our progress and left schools and parents to fend for themselves: Democrat versus Republican; vouchers versus the status quo; more money versus more reform — all along failing to acknowledge that both sides have good ideas and good intentions."

Duncan knows that neither vouchers nor more money will magically cure schools. Rather, we need to get parents involved, raise standards, improve the quality of teachers and leaders, and provide all children with a rich curriculum and experience.

As Obama noted in his press conference, "We need a new vision for a 21st century education system — one where we aren't just supporting existing schools, but spurring innovation; where we're not just investing more money, but demanding more reform; where parents take responsibility for their children's success."

We at GreatSchools stand ready to work with Arne Duncan and the Obama Administration to improve our nation's schools. Leveraging the technologies of our time, we have a unique opportunity to involve parents in this crusade in a way that has never been seen before.

Now Introducing: Preschools on GreatSchools

Talk to any parent considering where to send their child to preschool and you’ll hear stories, mostly about how daunting a challenge it is to find the right preschool and the relief they feel once they’ve found it.

I hear from parents all the time who face similar questions: Where and how should I start? What’s the right preschool approach for me? Montessori, Waldorf or other? How academic should the preschool be? How should I look at hours and costs?

Some parents even break out complex post-it notes and spreadsheets to complete the task.

GreatSchools can make it easier. That’s why I’m excited to share with you the launch of the GreatSchools Preschool Finder. Beginning today, parents can find information on nearly 100,000 preschools throughout the country, expert information about how to choose a preschool, and in-depth information about a particular school.

How Can You Help? Rate and Review a Preschool Today

Simply put, one of the best ways for a parent to decide on a preschool is to hear from other parents. Please take a moment to rate and review the preschool that your children have attended. It will only take a minute to rate your child’s school and the impact on other parents will be enormous.

Enjoy our new preschool finder and share your child’s experience today.

A new frontier for GreatSchools

Since our founding 10 years ago, we have been helping parents make good choices about their children's education. Today, about one in three American parents turns to GreatSchools in a given year to help them decide where to send their children to school and track the performance of their children's schools.

Today, we're announcing that we have received funding to undertake a major new initiative designed to help low- and middle-income families guide their children to graduate from high school ready for college.

More than a year ago, we began to consider: What more could we at GreatSchools do to improve education? How could we do more for our large audience of parents? And what could we do for low-income parents whose children face the steepest climb to college?

Our answer: We should leverage the technology of our times to create a comprehensive parent-training program and support group that inspires and guides parents — especially low-income parents — to raise children who are ready for college.

Funded generously by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robertson Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation, this new initiative will do just that. Stay tuned!

Dear Mr. President...

Dear Mr. President,

Let's be honest: When it comes to improving our nation's 98,000 public schools, the next few years will be very challenging. School budgets will be cut. Class sizes will grow. Dropout rates are likely to remain unacceptably high. Today more than one-third of all high school students don’t graduate on time.

There's a critically important resource, however, that can be employed immediately to help the nearly 50 million public school students do better: our nation’s parents.

Children are deeply influenced by their parents' expectations, attitudes, behavior and support. Many studies show that parents have at least as much impact on their children's educational success as their teachers.

I hope you use the power of your office to unleash the transforming power of this latent resource, and launch a national campaign to draw parents into deeper and more effective involvement in their children's education.

Here are three ideas that can help accomplish this:

1. Work with states to develop national education standards based on a deep understanding of what it takes for young adults to be successful; communicate the importance of these standards to parents and citizens everywhere.
2. Leverage new technologies and partnerships to engage America's parents in ongoing learning about how to support their children's success and what it means for their children to be academically “on track."
3. Help states and districts develop and disseminate easily understood reports that allow parents to not only monitor how their kids are doing in class, but also how they are mastering the skills necessary to be successful after graduation day.

Now is the time to inspire and guide parents to reinforce the lessons of the classroom and engage their children in learning throughout the day. A trip to the supermarket, for instance, provides a quick opportunity to reinforce math skills: "We're buying these four items. Quick — before we get to the cash register — can you guess how much our bill will be? If we give the clerk $20, how much will we get back?"

Parents are our children's first teachers. We must go beyond bake sales and fund-raisers to draw them into a leading role in a national movement for improved education.

Third-graders and the financial bailout

My third-grader took a quick look at the financial bailout headline in the newspaper this morning and quickly gave up trying to understand it.

I don’t blame her. I feel the same way.

It's hard to fathom what is going on and what to think or do about it. But there is something useful we can do in the here and now: Teach our third-graders and the rest of our kids about money and finances so they can make good decisions later.

Here are three ideas, suitable for a range of ages:

1. For young kids, introduce the idea of a budget. There are lots of things we want to buy, but we only have a certain amount of money. How do we decide what is most important to buy? How much should we save and for what? How much should we give away and to whom?

2. Talk to late elementary and middle school children about borrowing. Explain that people sometimes borrow money to be able to buy things that they would otherwise not be able to afford. Introduce the ideas of interest and risk. How much should people borrow? What happens if you can't repay the loan? Kids are fascinated by all this.

3. Ask your child's school what they're doing to develop students' financial literacy. Many states are now including financial literacy in state standards. A suggestion you could bring to your child's elementary or middle school: Bizworld  is a terrific program for teaching entrepreneurship and finance. I've seen the kids who've been in the program present their ideas for businesses to successful entrepreneurs in their community and it gets everyone excited!

One more idea: Perhaps you can help your child (and yourself) better understand what $700 billion is by asking them to figure out how many weeks/years/centuries of their earnings/allowance it would take to save $700 billion. (Have your child leave a comment on my blog with the answer!)

Finally, for more tips on talking to your child about financial literacy, check these GreatSchools articles:

Smart Money: Raising a Financially Literate Child

From Our Readers: Raising a Financially Savvy Child

Six ways to protect against a worthless high school diploma

A new report by Strong American Schools shows that a great many high school graduates are not really prepared for college. Released on Monday, the Diploma to Nowhere report tells us that more than one million incoming college students must take remedial courses to acquire basic academic skills in math and reading in order to take and comprehend entry-level college courses.

Ouch.

You might think that a high school diploma means that your high school graduate is ready for college, but not so. In fact, the study shows that 4 out of 5 of incoming college students who need remediation had a high school grade-point average of 3.0 or higher.

This is a problem of low standards in high school.

You don't want this to happen to your kid. It will cost you or your child extra cash and increase the chances that he or she will drop out of college. And it wastes your child's time. After all, this is the stuff they were supposed to learn in high school.

Here are six ways to protect yourself and your child against this risk:

• Steer your children toward harder courses. Make sure they take four years of math and four years of English. Find the teachers who uphold high standards (ask other parents and the principal) and ask for your child to be assigned to those classes.
• Pay particular attention to your children's scores on end-of-course exams. In California and some other states, students take an exam at the end of algebra and other critical "college gatekeeper" courses. Make sure your child and your child's teacher know that you expect the result to be good! 
• Have your child take tests beginning in middle school that help benchmark his or her progress toward being college ready. ACT has the Explore and Plan programs for kids in middle and early high school. The College Board has the PSAT test. Talk to your high school counselor, college placement office or principal. Make sure your child takes the tests earlier rather than later. You can't solve problems unless you know they're there.
• Encourage your child to take AP courses. These courses are benchmarked to college-level standards. If your child can get a 4 or 5 (5 is best) on these courses, he's on track.
• If your school offers  the IB curriculum (International Baccalaureate), encourage your child to enroll. This is a rigorous college prep program leading to an international diploma.
• Tell your principal and school board members that you think a high school diploma should mean that the graduate has the skills required to succeed in college -- without remedial courses. Follow up with them and see what they're doing about this issue.

Above all, don't assume that a high school diploma means that your child is ready for college. You've got to get informed and involved to make sure your child really is ready.