PTA Takes Action: Federal Policy Update August 2011 |
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For more than 115 years, PTA has advocated for children and families in education, juvenile justice, and children’s health. PTA’s rich advocacy history and successes, as well as our promising future will be documented in the 5-minute video, PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership. Each PTA state/congress will receive one DVD copy of PTA Advocacy: A Legacy in Leadership. The video will also be uploaded to the National PTA Public Policy Online Advocacy Toolkit. For more information on this new PTA advocacy history DVD, please contact Tiffany Knight, National PTA advocacy specialist at tknight@pta.org.
Wave Three of CCSSI Launches in September National PTA applauds the victories achieved as a result of the hard work of the second wave CCSSI state committee volunteers and welcomes the third wave of advocates to the effort. CCSSI second-wave states have done a tremendous job! Ohio should be especially proud of their member communication and social-networking achievements, including significant overhauls to their website, e-mail system, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. Minnesota has also made great strides by increasing the advocacy capacity of both their board and leaders. Mississippi has become a powerhouse and the “go-to” group in their state for education reform, gaining a new level of respect from elected and appointed officials through their efforts. Washington state has developed up-and-coming leaders, and has reached deep into their grassroots to increase overall awareness and support for the standards. Each and every volunteer deserves a heartfelt thank-you for the many hours given to this effort throughout the course of the year. Special kudos go to Melisa Yeoman, Bonnie Cannon, Judy Johnson-Evans, and Linda Hanson for leading their teams to success. With every end comes new beginnings, and National PTA is incredibly excited to transition into the third wave of CCSSI beginning this September. We would like to thank the many local and state PTAs who applied for a 2011–2012 CCSSI grant and we are excited to announce the winning grantees for Wave Three:
These states and districts will continue the work of educating parents on the Common Core State Standards and training their parent leaders on effective advocacy skills including:
If you are interested in promoting the Standards in your area, please visit PTA.org/CCSSI for resources to assist you.
Achieving Excellence and Innovation in Family, School, and Community Engagement Webinar Series The U.S. Department of Education and its partners National PTA, United Way Worldwide, SEDL, and Harvard Family Research Project invite you to participate in the eighth installment of this webinar series. Evaluating Family Engagement Strategies: Addressing Measurement Challenges This webinar will highlight promising approaches for evaluating family engagement strategies, addressing challenges in defining and measuring outcomes, and providing guidance for building evaluation into a family engagement plan from the beginning. By defining measurable objectives early in the planning process, it becomes possible to connect family engagement efforts to important milestones—such as increases in parents’ understanding of how to support learning at home—as well as the ultimate goal of increased student achievement. Evaluating family engagement strategies to demonstrate their impact on student learning is essential for strengthening practice and is becoming an increasingly important factor in securing program funding. Yet evaluation in this field is still in a developmental phase and there are few clear guidelines available for identifying meaningful indicators of successful family engagement efforts. Evaluating Family Engagement Strategies will be presented through a roundtable discussion among evaluation experts and will address questions such as:
The roundtable format will allow ample time to address questions and comments from the webinar audience. We encourage your participation during the webinar discussion and also invite you to submit questions in advance anytime before August 18. You may submit questions via e-mail to fine@gse.harvard.edu, or via Twitter, directing comments to @HFRP and using the hashtag #FEchat. Due to time restraints we will not be able to address all submissions. Featured panelists include:
Register at nationalpirc.org/engagement_webinars/register.html. White House Calls/Web Chats Focus on Youth Outreach On Friday, July 1, the White House hosted a youth outreach call with President Barack Obama. The president and other experts discussed the Administration’s work on youth engagement in education. The White House will host a series of calls and web chats on a variety of issues concerning young Americans, education, civic engagement, poverty, college affordability, and youth entrepreneurship. Jon Carson, deputy assistant to the president and director of public engagement, declared that this generation of youth is dedicated to making change happen. Carson debriefed callers on the president’s commitment to youth issues and initiatives. He discussed both of the president's “100 Youth Roundtables Initiative” outline and the “How to Make Change” youth summer series, and also discussed ongoing events on youth employment and entrepreneurship. Carson highlighted upcoming webcasts on how to make change through civic engagement, tackling poverty, college affordability, student aid, and Pell grants. For further information on these roundtables and web chats, please visit whitehouse.gov/youngamericans. Lastly, Marisa Lee, senior advisor for the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), discussed unemployment and the need to develop jobs for young Americans. She emphasized the need for young Americans to develop the ability to start their own businesses. The SBA will be hosting Young Entrepreneur Summits. For more information on these summits, please visit the U.S. Small Business Administration website. If you have any questions, please contact Tiffany Knight, National PTA advocacy specialist, at tknight@pta.org. |