Beyond the Bake Sale


Book Description

Countless studies demonstrate that students with parents actively involved in their education at home and school are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher-level programs, graduate from high school, and go on to post-secondary education. Beyond the Bake Sale shows how to form these essential partnerships and how to make them work. Packed with tips from principals and teachers, checklists, and an invaluable resource section, Beyond the Bake Sale reveals how to build strong collaborative relationships and offers practical advice for improving interactions between parents and teachers, from insuring that PTA groups are constructive and inclusive to navigating the complex issues surrounding diversity in the classroom. Written with candor, clarity, and humor, Beyond the Bake Sale is essential reading for teachers, parents on the front lines in public schools, and administrators and policy makers at all levels.




Every Teacher′s Guide to Working With Parents


Book Description

Transform teacher-parent relationships into a strategy for children′s success! While most parents strive to support their children with the best parenting practices, both teachers and parents often find themselves struggling to reconcile conflicts that can result in hostility, defensiveness, and communication breakdowns. In addition, negative public constructions of parents perpetuate this dilemma, particularly for those parents who are already marginalized through poverty or language barriers. Working from research in three key areas-parent development and skills, social and historical family influences, and parent-school relationships-educator (and parent) Gwen L. Rudney offers teachers: Useful interpretations of parent beliefs and actions Compelling insight into what parents expect from teachers Key ideas that characterize the struggles that parents face while raising children Practical strategies designed to lead to community, trust-building, collaboration, gratitude, and friendship with parents Straightforward chapters offer teachers everything from theory to commonsense strategies for working with parents to improve life and learning for all children.




The Politics of the Pta


Book Description

Provides an inside view of the PTA and its mission, giving background information, political agendas, and insight into its future.




Principles to Actions


Book Description

This text offers guidance to teachers, mathematics coaches, administrators, parents, and policymakers. This book: provides a research-based description of eight essential mathematics teaching practices ; describes the conditions, structures, and policies that must support the teaching practices ; builds on NCTM's Principles and Standards for School Mathematics and supports implementation of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics to attain much higher levels of mathematics achievement for all students ; identifies obstacles, unproductive and productive beliefs, and key actions that must be understood, acknowledged, and addressed by all stakeholders ; encourages teachers of mathematics to engage students in mathematical thinking, reasoning, and sense making to significantly strengthen teaching and learning.










Pennsylvania Parent-teacher


Book Description




Teachers' Guide to School Turnarounds


Book Description

Most guides to the process of turning around low-performing schools are written for principals and policy makers. Teachers, however, are the individuals expected to conduct the “heavy lifting” of school improvement. Teachers’ Guide to School Improvement is the first book on the subject written expressly for teachers. In this expanded second edition, teachers are shown a step-by-step process for raising student achievement, beginning with the diagnosis of the causes of low achievement and extending through the crucial first year of turnaround and beyond. Examples of effective turnaround practices are drawn from a variety of elementary, middle, and high schools.




Empowering Teachers to Build a Better World


Book Description

This open access book presents a comparative study on how large-scale professional development programs for teachers are designed and implemented. Around the world, governments and educators are recognizing the need to educate students in a broad range of higher order cognitive skills and socio-emotional competencies, and providing effective opportunities for teachers to develop the expertise needed to teach these skills is a crucial aspect of effective implementation of curricula which include those goals. This study examines how large-scale efforts to empower teachers for deeper instruction have been designed, how they have been implemented, and their outcomes. To do so, it investigates six programs from England, Colombia, Mexico, India, and the United States. Though all six are intended to broaden and deepen students’ curricular aspirations, each takes this expansion of curricular goals in a different direction. The ambitious education reforms studied here explicitly focus on building teachers’ capacity to teach on a broader set of goals. Through a discerning analysis of program documents, evaluations, and interviews with senior leaders and participants in the programs, the book identifies the various theories of action used in these programs, examines how they were implemented, and discusses what they achieved. As such, it offers an indispensable resource for education leaders interested in designing and implementing professional development programs for teachers that are aligned with ambitious instructional goals.




School, Family, and Community Partnerships


Book Description

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.