1,500 Parents and Counting...

For more than a decade, research has suggested that parent involvement is the biggest predictor of a child's success in school, work and life. So in preparation for the upcoming school year, we're asking parents to support their children's education by taking The Great Parents Pledge.

In less than a week, we've garnered the support of more than 1,500 parents, including comedian Rob Corddry (The Daily Show) and author Sandra Tsing Loh (Mother on Fire). Our goal is to get more than one million people to take the pledge and promote GreatSchools' effort to empower and guide parents to become effective champions of education at home and in their communities.

Check out who else is a Great Parent:

"Parents play such an important role in their kids' education. In the context of tight family and school budgets, it's important to keep in mind the easy yet vital ways that parents can support their children. I'm a proud supporter of GreatSchools and encourage all parents to join the movement and take The Great Parents Pledge."


"A child's mind is this beautiful, absorbent, curious, malleable, stretchable thing that we have the opportunity to educate and watch as it grows. A good education at home and at great schools lays the proper foundation to allow our children to understand the context of their thoughts and build on those ideas, taking us to new intellectual heights."


"For me, having a child is all about balance and never losing sight of my family's priorities. My son's education and daily experience at school top those priorities. I commend GreatSchools for encouraging more active parent involvement in education, and happily make the same commitment."


If you haven't already, take The Great Parents Pledge now and tell us how you promise to support your child's education this year.

GreatSchools App on My Yahoo!

As more and more parents use new online services, we want to enable them to be involved with their kids’ education wherever they are on the Web.

That’s why we’re thrilled that Yahoo! included GreatSchools as one of its featured applications for My Yahoo! that helps people get things done, stay organized and save time on their own personalized start pages.

Through the GreatSchools App on My Yahoo!, we are bringing the breadth and depth of our school quality information to moms and dads to help them make decisions that are right for their family. Along with all of the other great productivity tools in My Yahoo!, the GreatSchools App will make it easier for parents to keep their kids’ education top of mind in their daily lives.

Not on My Yahoo!? No problem. You can find, connect and follow us throughout the social web:

• Become a GreatSchools Fan on Facebook
• Follow GreatSchools on Twitter
• Join us on MySpace

We believe that the Internet and other social media — the technology of our times — can enable parents to connect with each other, inspiring them to be involved in their children’s education every step of the way. We hope you connect with us wherever you are online.


And don’t forget: Try out the new GreatSchools App on My Yahoo! and tell us what you think.

Improving Education in a Tough Economy

Last week, several of us attended the San Francisco School Alliance Benefit Luncheon where Secretary of Education Arne Duncan addressed the crowd. While Duncan touched on his plans for the nation and his views on education, the central message was clear: Not for decades will we have the unique opportunity that we do now to improve education. Duncan cited the current administration and Congress along with a $46.7 billion proposed Education budget and over $100 billion in ARRA funds as some of the reasons why.

Secretary Duncan is right — the time really is now. If we can’t make real strides with this kind of momentum and the resources that are available, what will it take for progress? With that said, I think it’s important to remember that money and resources simply provide us with leverage to work more effectively for change. At GreatSchools, we believe that parents are a pivotal factor in ensuring that our kids are prepared for higher education, work and life. Our hope is that parents will join us in taking advantage of the rare opportunity that we find ourselves with today.

What do you think? Is there a silver lining for education in this recession?

Sweets or Success? What Marshmallows Teach Us

Yesterday we welcomed Angela Lee Duckworth, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and former GreatSchools COO, to share her wise and witty insights on self-discipline and academic achievement. Duckworth’s research delves into the findings of Walter Mischel, otherwise known as the grandfather of self-regulation psychology. Mischel designed a series of experiments in the 1960s nicknamed “the marshmallow tests,” which examined the correlation between delayed gratification and GPA.

One by one, Mischel tested the willpower of hundreds of four-year-olds by tempting them with a marshmallow treat and then followed the progress of each child into adolescence. Those who were capable of resisting the marshmallow predicted better competence in a variety of important outcomes, such as achieving higher SAT scores and being less susceptible to drug abuse.

Partnering with mission-driven education nonprofits such as KIPP and Teach for America, Duckworth is developing programs to apply Mischel’s research in a handful of schools. Her work will employ proven strategies that teach children to consciously self-regulate, including:

• Distraction, or when a child diverts his or her attention from the temptation.
• Cognitive transformation, or when a child views the temptation as unappealing — imagining the marshmallow is a cloud, for instance.
• Repetition of the contingency, or when a child vocalizes a self-regulating goal (“If I don’t eat the marshmallow now, I can have more later”).
• Recognition of the idiosyncratic nature of temptation — in other words, not every child is tempted by marshmallows!

Duckworth is not the only one trying to implement Mischel’s findings. The Educational Testing Service, an organization that prepares standardized tests, has established a new department focused on incorporating personality attributes like self-discipline and emotional intelligence into scholastic achievement tests.

Watch a video recreating Mischel's discoveries. What are your strategies for resisting temptation? Have you shared them with your child?

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!

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!