Appleseed Joins Duncan's Calls for Aggressive Efforts To Lift Worst Schools

National Leaders in Educational Philanthropy Meet

Chicago Student's Death Underscores Reform Urgency

Duncan's St. Louis Visit Caps "historic moment"

CHICAGO, IL - Following an "emotional meeting'' with a dozen Chicago Public School students, Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education called for a "national conversation'' about values and teen violence and said he will visit other cities "to talk with people and find ways to protect our children". Secretary Duncan told more than 400 of the nation’s leaders in educational philanthropy - including Project Appleseed President Kevin Walker - gathered in Chicago that reforming education is a collaborative effort of schools, funders and his department. (Above, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Project Appleseed President Kevin Walker in Chicago, IL, Picture: Robert Thorton, News Photography Newtwork).

“Now the responsibility for speeding that transformation lies not just with nonprofits and districts, but right at our feet at the doors of the U.S. Department of Education,” he said.

Duncan, who headed Chicago Public Schools before taking his current post, challenged funders and nonprofit organizations to work collaboratively, not competitively to make the most of limited resources. Duncan, a Chicago native and former Chicago Public Schools CEO, also brought promises of money for President Obama's adopted hometown: an infusion of $500,000 in federal emergency dollars to stabilize Fenger and its surrounding elementary schools in the wake of 16-year-old Derrion Albert's death.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson and activists want the city train and hire parents as community patrols to keep an eye on the students and to make sure they get to and from school safely. (the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Project Appleseed President Kevin Walker in Chicago, IL).

"I agree with Rev. Jackson, but we seek to go a step further. Project Appleseed seeks to organize family and community involvement, door-to-door, in Chicago's struggling schools. We need tens of thousands of caring adults to volunteer in Chicago. This is an innovative and researched based effort to engage a coordinated and sustained grassroots campaign to increase community involvement and responsibility. The problems of school violence and low academic achievement can be solved by organizing responsibilty on a sytemic scale. Every parent and caring adult in Chicago should take the Parental Involvement Pledge," said Project Appleseed president Kevin Walker in Chicago.

Project Appleseed has proposed that the Obama administration to fund 47,000 parent liaison positions in high poverty schools through the use of increased Title I funds. Professionally trained parent liaisons recruit and organize volunteers, help implement parent pledges and compacts throughout the year, organize activities that increase engagement between the school and community and promote activities that promote family literacy. The local school district would hire the liaisons and their training can be facilitated quickly through state PIRC’s (Parent Information Resource Centers).

“We need to move beyond the separate silos of education reform that have prevented districts, practitioners and nonprofits from sharing and replicating solutions from the past,” said Duncan.

Duncan outlined the department’s Investing in Innovation grant program, a $650 million slice of the nearly $100 billion for education in the American Recovery Act and Reinvestment Act.

Information for this article comes from the Medill Reports, Northwestern University and the Chicago Tribune

Walker Vows Support for Nicastro and
Applauds AFT President Weingarten's Four C's"

ST. LOUIS, MO — United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told a crowd gathered at a St. Louis Public school that he supported an unlikely collaborative efforts by St. Louis Public Schools and AFT St. Louis, schools that serve whole communities, high-quality charter schools and aggressive efforts to lift the country's worst schools from the bottom. (Pictured: Missouri Commissioner of Education Dr. Chris Nicastro.)

The American Federation of Teachers invited Duncan to Lexington Elementary, 5030 Lexington Avenue, to highlight new partnerships between the union and St. Louis Public School administration.

"Finally we see cooperation in St. Louis Public Schools. This is an enviroment in which gains can be made in community involvement as well. They are talking the talk. The rest remains to be seen. Dr. Nicastro says that she needs Project Appleseed's help in St. Louis and across the state. We are ready and willing to do whatever is needed," said Project Appleseed President Kevin Walker in St. Louis.

Almost 300 — including Project Appleseed President Kevin Walker, new Missouri Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro, Mayor Francis Slay, union and district leaders, teachers, and even a few students — gathered in the school gymnasium to hear Duncan and national AFT president Randi Weingarten speak.

Weingarten commended a new era of cooperation between the district and the local union. She praised "full-service" community schools that offer a range of services for area residents, from after-school classes to job placement to health care.

Her visit also served to kick off a peer assistance and review program for new district teachers, which would assign union mentors to help them through their first year.

The AFT says such a program ensures, first, that new teachers get immediate support and training; second, that districts only offer permanent positions to "capable, well-prepared" teachers; and, finally, that unions and experienced teachers set standards for all.

Duncan lauded the program but also spoke on an array of issues, from closing down poorly performing charter schools to focusing on teacher quality.

He said he believes education in St. Louis is primed for a renaissance.

"This is a neat, neat moment," he told the crowd. "A historic moment.

"And I'm going to be watching this place very closely."

Not long after the start of the Lexington Elementary visit, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan arrived to show support for both AFT Back-to-School Tour '09 and for the good things happening in St. Louis schools. "What you have now is tremendous alignment, [and] I think St. Louis can lead the country," Duncan told the media assembled in the school gym at a press conference that also included local elected officials, administrators, union leaders and educators. Weingarten used the press conference to personally thank the educators working tirelessly to produce the great examples of true school reform she had seen in St. Louis on Thursday—schools that illustrate a "public school renaissance" now unfolding in the city. She said the work shows the true power of reforms built around "the four C's": children, community, collaboration and curriculum.

Duncan joined AFT president Randi Weingarten and AFT St. Louis president Mary Armstrong at the school for a meeting with the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Then all three participated in a press conference at the school. Some big themes emerged from the St. Louis visit, and the press conference was a chance to hit them again hard, particularly the need for true school improvement to be based on collaborative efforts. All in all, it was an upbeat ending to an upbeat visit to a district that sees better days ahead. The baton now passes to Houston for the second leg of the AFT Back-to-School Tour '09, beginning tomorrow.

Lexington Elementary had the honor of hosting the final stop of the St. Louis leg, and it turned out to be quite a media event. The visit started with a tour of the building, with a special focus on Lexington's strong and growing pre-K program. Staffers said this type of quality early learning will help build on gains at Lexington, which has made "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) for the past two years. Another school strength: what is considered to be one of the most outstanding staff-administrator relationships in the district.

Information for this article comes from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the St. Louis American and the American Federation of Teachers.

A New Foundation for Parent Involvement

By Kevin Walker, President & Founder, Project Appleseed

We need a new foundation for parental involvement in public schools. Nearly everything in public education is measured except the level of parent and family involvement. What are the metrics? How many schools can report the number of volunteers or volunteer hours in a year? How much does volunteerism affect the school budget? Do you know how much social capital your schools raise and leverage? Nearly $100 million in funds are dedicated to parental involvement under Title I of the ARRA - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. America needs effective and quantifiable parent involvement.

"As I travel the country and visit schools, I have been struck by how almost everyone pays lip service to parent and family involvement, but few seriously apply themselves to making it happen. Why is this? So much progress has been made in recent years in other areas of school reform - reductions in class size, establishment of challenging academic standards, increase in after-school reading and math programs - why not in parent and family involvement?", wrote Bob Chase, past president of the National Education Association (NEA), in his book the New Public School Parent. " The research evidence is beyond dispute. When schools work together with families to support learning, very good things happen: student attitudes, attendance, homework, and report cards improve."

According to President Obama, "Responsibility for our children's education must begin at home". In his February address to Congress, President Obama asserted the supremacy of parental involvement in public schools:

Link to video http://www.hulu.com/watch/59355/the-obama-administration-obamas-emphasis-on-education?c=283

"These education policies will open the doors of opportunity for our children. But it is up to us to ensure they walk through them. 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."

America's parent groups are in decline and disorganized. The National PTA once boasted more than 12 million members in the late 1960s; today membership is down below 5.5 million. There is no state or national PTO out there for the thousands of local groups. A PTO is only one group of parents, involved in one particular school. They generally do not have national standards nor do they provide access to a larger network.

Parental involvement works and its time to start actually applying ourselves to making it happen. We must stimulate America's parents. Every state department of education, school district and school should engage an organized parental involvement campaign. The core of Project Appleseed's national award winning campaign is our Title I learning compact called the Parental Involvement Pledge. By signing the Pledge, parents agree to "take personal responsibility" for their children's education. We ask you, as parents, grandparents or as caring adults, to pledge to spend at least five hours each semester assisting at school, and fifteen minutes reading with your child each evening. This is how we can effectively leverage tax payer dollars into new social capital. We must organize millions of new parent and family volunteers each school year. 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.

This is a challenging time for our nation's schools. It is important that we tell America's parents that the school reform wagon train will not make it to the frontier if we leave uninvolved parents behind by the side of the trail. We must constantly reach out to extend and enlarge the family of involved parents. Lifting them up into the wagon train along the way - leaving no parent behind.

Nationwide, if every public school student had at least one family member volunteer ten hours, the minimum dollar benefit to children and schools would be $17 billion in volunteer time - more than the $14 billion Congress approved in Title I stimulus funds. A 10 percent increase in parental participation (a form of social capital) would increase academic achievement far more than a 10 percent increase in school spending. This is not an argument against school budget increases, but an argument for paying attention to social capital.

We want to share with you the Six Slices of Parental Involvement. This PowerPoint presentation has highlights of the best available research on parental involvement in America. Also included is Project Appleseed's vision on how pledges and learning compacts can increase and organize parental involvement in Title I schools and all schools.

About Us: Project Appleseed is a major educational resource and advocate for parents and families engaged in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness in America’s public schools. We are a catalyst in the implementation of effective, research based, model parent and community involvement programs that increase social capital, improves the lives of families and revitalizes schools and communities across the United States. In 1994 our leadership advised the Clinton Administration, on the original parental involvement provisions of Section 1118 of the reauthorization of Title I. Project Appleseed was named top 10 education and parent leader in the United States by the editors of both Teacher & Parenting magazines. Our web site is the #1 ranked resource for 'parental involvement in public schools' in Google, & Yahoo!. Please contact Kevin Walker should you have questions about organizing parental involvement in America’s public schools.

Districts Honor Volunteers during Public School Volunteer Week

Port Angeles, Wash. – This week schools all across America participated in Project Appleseed's Public School Volunteer Week. The Port Angeles board of directors adopted Resolution No. 089-07 proclaiming April 19 through April 25, 2009 as Public School Volunteer Week in the Port Angeles School District.

"During the past decade,” notes the proclamation, “school systems throughout the country have accepted the services of dedicated volunteers to assist professional educators, and these volunteers have offered their time, encouragement, and meaningful contact with students.”

“Volunteers are called upon to assist teachers and staff with the day-to-day activities involved in providing a balanced education for our students and are an important part of a team that strives to ensure that each and every one of our students succeeds,” continued the proclamation, and “during the school year, countless volunteers are spending innumerable hours serving schools in the Port Angeles School District as chaperones, mentors, after-school tutors, club leaders, booster club members, PTA and PTO members, guest speakers, classroom helpers, athletics coaches, and in countless other ways.”

Project Appleseed, a national campaign for public school improvement, has designated the third week of April as Public School Volunteer Week. As noted on its website, http://www.projectappleseed.org/, the event Volunteer Week was begun “to provide opportunities in which parents can volunteer in their local public schools. Five million parents in 3500 school districts are involved in this effort.”

Project Appleseed President & National Director, Kevin Walker, recently spoke at Western Washington University in Bellingham. Mr. Walker said, "Nationwide, if every public school student had at least one family member volunteer ten hours, the minimum dollar benefit to children and schools would be $17 billion in volunteer time - more than the $14 billion Congress approved in Title I stimulus funds. I believe that each state department of education should engage a statewide Parental Involvement Pledge campaign and encourage local districts and schools to do the same. This is how we should effectively leverage tax payer dollars. We must organize millions of new parent and family volunteers each school year and every school year."

Assistant Superintendent Mary Hebert and Board President Steve Baxter thanked all volunteers in the district and presented those in attendance with certificates of appreciation.

Volunteers in attendance were Laurie Dudley, Jane Wise, Panya Hutton, Heather Iotte, Eleanor Geiger, Nicole Ramos, Christie Tucker, Sarah Methner, Betsy Wharton, Tracy Allan and Deanna Collins.

Not in attendance, but receiving certificates of recognition: Christine Bohman, Kerry Alward, Nicole Jackson, Lisa Due, Michelle Raber, Theresa Beckstrom, Jennie Heilman, Linda Cameron, Anne Todnem, Kerri Cobb, Katrina Leslie, Amber Mozingo, Kathy Herbert, Laurie Blake and Ann Mitchell.

For more information, contact:

Tina Smith-O’Hara
Communications Specialist
Port Angeles School District
360.565.3703
tsmithohara@portangelesschools.org

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