Appleseed
Today
Video
Education News
Who Will You
Vote For In
2008?
The Candidates
& Education
Teachers of the Year 2007
After meeting
at the White House to celebrate their selections as Teachers
of the Year, 50 of the educators called for major changes in
No Child Left Behind.
20/20 Stupid in America
How We Treat Our Kids
20-20 investigation
by John Stossel entitled "Stupid in America" highlighting
some of the flaws with the education system in the United States.
(ABC)
Parental Involvement
Missouri
Commissioner of Education, D. Kent King, talks about the absolute
need for more parental involvement in St. Louis. It applies everywhere
in America. (PUBDEF)
Ohio School Reforms Itself
A Cincinnati
high school transformed its abysmal test scores and graduation
rate with a little financial help and a lot of hard work. Cynthia
Bowers reports. (CBSNews.com)
Low Academic Achievement
A national report
found that an alarming number of high school seniors lack proficiency
in reading and math. Katie Couric says we must do a better job
of educating our kids. (CBSNews.com)
Measuring
Standardized Tests
The No Child
Left Behind Act is up for renewal this year, so Katie Couric
wonders whether standardized tests truly measure how kids do
in school and life. (CBSNews.com)
Drop-Out Rate
Called Shameful
Nationally 7,000
students drop-out of school each day. 1.2 million students are
expected to drop-out this year. (CNN)
Keeping Kids Healthy: Youth Violence - Breaking the Cycle
Every day we
hear gruesome stories of violent acts committed by young people:
school shootings, gang wars, bullying. But why are so many of
our kids turning to violence, and how do we stop it? (WNET) 26
min.
School Violence
Talking to Your Kids
Many parents
are wondering how to talk to their kids about the tragedy at
Virginia Tech. (CBSNews.com)
School Shootings
Warning Signs (MSNBC.com)
How Do You Spend
$1.5 Billion A Year?
Warren Buffett's Gift
To Gates Foundation
Brings Hope To Public Schools
(CBSNews.com)
Enemies List:
School Districts That
Steal Appleseed Property
Newark Superintendent
Fails to Right
Academic Fraud
 iPrint
Education News
Appleseed
Today
The Hook-Up
Links to K-12 Education
- Federal Government
Information
- Parental Involvement
- Articles, Databases,
and Directories
- Organizations
- Charter Schools,
- Choice,
and Vouchers
- Education Reform
- Kindergarten
- Online Learning
- Standards and Testing
- School
Reports and Statistics
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Bill Cosby's Message for
Families & Communities
Entertainer Bill Cosby and Alvin F. Poussaint lay out
their vision for strengthening families and communities in
'Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors.'
AS A PARENT, GRANDPARENT, OR
CARING ADULT, I hereby give my
pledge of commitment to help our community's children achieve a truly independent future. My
declaration
of
responsibility
and commitment
to my
public
schools
is stated in these
five self-evident truths as spoken by President Woodrow Wilson.... more
 Spanish Parental Involvement
Pledge
Pop Quiz:
Parental Involvement
How well are you doing at being involved
in your child's education
The Learning Community
Leave No Parent Behind
No Child Left Behind Speakout,
Texas Statewide Hearing
Linda & Reginald
- Reagan High School, Houston A-Plus
Project Appleseed
seeks to create partnerships with state departments of education,
nonprofit groups, and corporate partners whose business, philanthropic,
and educational objectives can be met through a -Leave No Parent Behind Partnership!
Get the Graduation Rate
For Any High School in America
Edweek Maps
The Editorial Projects
in Education Research Center is proud to announce the Beta version
of a powerful new online mapping tool to help the public, policymakers,
and educational leaders combat the graduation crisis.
For the first time,
comparable,
reliable data on graduation rates will be readily available
for every school district in the country.
Homework LinkCentral
Links to Homework Resources
Everywhere!
School Fitness & Nutrition
Portal for parents and educators
Four Myths
of Parent Involvement
In Schools
Southwest Educational
Development Laboratory
has combed through
research to learn how
parents can help
improve their children's achievement.
Parent Organizing Database
 Order the Parental Involvement Toolbox
for your schools today! Get the Parent
Organizing Database.
Does your school
or parent group need to manage parent volunteer contacts and
contributions without making a huge investment of money or time?
You've come to the right place. The Parent Organizing Database
runs on any Windows computer, and is easy enough for everyone
to learn.
- View a sample of
the software as slide show!
- These screens show
the process of finding a record, editing basic info
- These screens show
entering donations, viewing donations, doing
queries/reports on previous payments.
- Organizers' Database
includes sophisticated features for querying your
data, printing, import, export, categorizing, and customization.
Parent Organizing
Database 1.0.1 Features
List
What Is A PIRC?
Percolate with PIRC's
Parent Information
and Resource Centers (PIRCs) help implement successful and effective
parental involvement policies, programs, and activities that
lead to improvements in student academic achievement.
What do I
have to offer to my child's school?
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In
the 21st century
school improvement works like the double helix that combines
and recombines genetic material to renew life. An effective school
improvement strategy must combine two complementary strands:
The inside
strand focuses on
the content of schooling
- curricula, academic standards, incentives and work rules for
teachers and a philosophy of school management.
The outside
strand attracts
and mobilizes community and political support, social capital, and other resources from outside
the traditional school bureaucracy - from parents, grandparents,
community members, alumni, businesses and the larger community.
Many communities have
the financial, intellectual, and leadership resources needed
to rebuild their own educational improvement strategies. To initiate
an effort to improve public schools in all of our nation's communities,
Project Appleseed concentrates on the outside strand of school
improvement. We mobilize Americans to volunteer and give to their
local public schools.
100 years ago, at the turn
of the last century, America's stock of social capital was
at an ebb, reduced by urbanization, industrialization, and vast
immigration that uprooted Americans from their friends, social
institutions, and families, a situation similar to today's.
Faced with this challenge,
the country righted itself. Within a few decades, a range of
organizations was created, from the National PTA, Red Cross,
Boy Scouts, and YWCA to Hadassah and the Knights of Columbus
and the Urban League. With these and many more cooperative societies
we rebuilt our social capital.
 We can learn from the experience
of those decades as we work to rebuild our eroded social capital.
It won't happen without the concerted creativity and energy of
Americans nationwide. (Hill, 1989, Putnam, 2000)
Parent
Engagement
The
Parental Involvement Pledge
What Is It? The
Parental Involvement Pledge has two
components. It provides an opportunity for parents to formalize
their commitment to working with their child's school through
a written agreement they can complete and take to their parent
leader, school secretary, teacher, or principal. The Pledge also provides a survey
of parent volunteer interests. The survey identifies 37 areas
in which parents can volunteer in school, outside the classroom
and at home. The Pledge is based on the Six Types of Parental
Involvement developed by Dr. Joyce Epstien at John's Hopkins
University.
How Do You Use
It?
The Pledge is a tool to share
with staff and parent organizations
as a way of recruiting volunteers and appropriately connecting
them with specific needs and activities.
When Do You Use It?
Title
I of No Child Left Behind requires that a Pledge or other
learning compact be used during parent-teacher conferences. Use it al so when you want to encourage
parents to volunteer or when you want teachers to invite and
encourage parental involvement on National
Parental Involvement Day, the third Thursday in November
or Public School Volunteer Week which
is the third week of April.
Why Do You Use It? U.S. Department
of Education research (Prospects
Study 1993) demonstrates that schools that use learning compacts
like the Parental Involvement Pledge have higher student achievement
than those that don't use them.
The Pledge provides a concrete way to help parents volunteer
because it allows them to choose very specific activities. It
is easier to get a commitment and follow-through if it is clear
exactly what is being asked and what is expected.
Who Do You Involve? When
parents are involved, their children do better in school, and
they go to better schools. Why
is this true? Because when parents are welcome in the school
and are consulted about decisions affecting their children, an
atmosphere of trust and collaboration develops between school
and home. When this happens, our children will perform at a higher
level, and the school will become more effective. The school
is a critically important community institution, since the quality
of education shapes not only our children's individual future,
but also the future of your community and society. Your support of public schools
is important; involvement and action by several parents in a
group can influence school policy-makers and result in decisions
and choices than can benefit many children. Use the Pledge with
parents, parent groups, and staff as a tool and encouragement
for parental involvement.
Dept's
of Ed. U.S. & State
Alabama
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District of Columbia
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South Carolina
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Texas
Utah
Vermont
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Washington
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Territories
Puerto Rico
Virgin Islands
PIRC's
Statewide
Parent Information &
Resource Centers
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Featured Articles
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Are Private
Schools
Really Better?
Don't Mourn
Brown v. Board
of Education
LET us now praise
the Brown decision. Let us now bury the Brown decision. Op-Ed Contributor: Juan Williams
How to Fix No Child
Left
Behind
How to Bring Our Schools
Out of the 20th Century
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