HowToGetParentBuyIn

Posted on Jun 04, 2005 @ 20:50 by CatherineJohnson

The TRAILBLAZERS teachers' guide devotes a number of sections to strategies for neutralizing incensed parents.

I had planned to quote some of these passages, and then, tonight, found an online TRAILBLAZERS document (PDF file) that's chock-ful of them:

Be pro-active with parents. Don’t wait until complaints hit. People have done a lot of things to involve parents, from math nights to big math carnivals, where the kids teach the activities to the parents. There are letters in the program that go home to parents.

When this teacher says 'there are letters in the program that go home to parents,' she doesn't mean that her school writes letters to parents once a month.

She means that her school has purchased, as part of the TRAILBLAZERS 'package' (which is enormous, I've seen it; worse yet, I've lifted it) a set of special TRAILBLAZERS Dear-Parent letters to be photocopied and sent home in the backpack at regular, designated intervals.

What the parent sees is a friendly letter from the school about her child’s math program.

What the school sees is a professionally-developed public relations campaign targeted to dissenting moms & dads.

The TRAILBLAZERS Dear Parent letters are not intended to serve an educational purpose. At least, no educational purpose is mentioned in any of the supporting materials I've seen as yet.

The explicit and openly stated purpose of the TRAILBLAZERS Dear Parent letters is to promote parent buy-in.

All of which means that not only am I paying for a program I don't like and don't want, I am paying for the press kit to persuade me I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't exactly the kind of thing the Boston Tea Party was about, but it's getting there.


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And here is another strategy for dealing with parents!

This strategy was developed by one Barbara Martin, principal of the Holmes Elementary School in Chicago:

[For parents] we do also have a math day, and on that math day, we invite parents to be in the room. The kids do math all day. In order to get the parents in the room, I offer them a little stipend. I only offer the stipend to the parents who can stay in the room all day—they’re helping the teacher, because they’re doing math all day, with Trailblazers and all the manipulatives. At the same time, they’re also getting to see what kids do. There are other parents that visit math day and leave because they can’t stay all day. We have a good turnout.

Ms. Martin has had fantastic success with TRAILBLAZERS ---

"For some of my children, our feeder schools are saying, “Please, please send us more like these.”

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So let's see how Holmes Elementary School children are faring in the high-stakes world of standardized testing.


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Oh dear.

Third grade: 30% of the kids meet state standards.
Fifth grade: down to maybe 27%.
Eighth grade: down to 5% meeting state standards.

This is an all-black, poor school, so they've got a lot to contend with. Maybe they'd have a 95% fail rate in 8th grade no matter what curriculum you gave them.

But look at their reading scores.

3rd grade: maybe 17 or 18% meet standards.
5th grade: up to 36 or 37%meeting standards.
8th grade: they're up to around 44% meeting standards.

Math goes down, reading goes up. Same kids, same school, same period of time.


EverydayMathDoesItToo
ILoveTheWorldWideWeb
ATeacherUsingTrailblazers
NoCommentPart2
CarolynFisksBook
AnotherGemFromMathForum
BigNumbers

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All of which means that not only am I paying for a program I don't like and don't want, I am paying for the press kit to persuade me I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't exactly the kind of thing the Boston Tea Party was about, but it's getting there.

We can only hope, Catherine. I can't tell you how much I admire people like you and how thankful I am that somebody fights this battle.

-- RayMinchew - 08 Jun 2005

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Hi Ray!

Well, I can't say I'm fighting any particular battle (though if I could round up a few troops I sure would).

But I am complaining a whole lot.

Sooner or later I'm gonna wear folks down.

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Jun 2005

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They also serve who only complain.

-- CarolynJohnston - 08 Jun 2005

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Catherine,

I just went through the Trailblazers PDF document you linked to. Eegads! I wish I could see the full text of the Math adventure where the dad and children learn their are thousand and thousands of bats in the cave. Indeed. Probably a good sized moonbeam in there also.

-- RayMinchew - 08 Jun 2005

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They also serve who only complain.

Hey!

Another candidate for Berenson/Johnson family motto.

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Jun 2005

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Eegads! I wish I could see the full text of the Math adventure where the dad and children learn there are thousand and thousands of bats in the cave. Indeed. Probably a good sized moonbeam in there also.

At least a few.

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Jun 2005

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Skookumchuk sent me an email in which he used the words, yikes a plenty.

I was saving it up, but I think one good Eegads calls for another Yikes aplenty.

-- CatherineJohnson - 10 Jun 2005

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the scansion seems to call for
"they also serve who only piss and moan".
or something.

-- VlorbikDotCom - 18 Nov 2005

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they also serve who only piss and moan

That works, too.

-- CatherineJohnson - 18 Nov 2005

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