Moms Rock!



This blog is about all things having to do with education, and since it is Mother’s Day, that got me thinking about how important Moms (and Dads) are to their children’s education.  I see the “usual suspects” – Mom volunteers at my children’s schools every day – listening to kids read, setting up science experiments, being art docents, organizing community-building events and fundraisers to help the school, staging staff appreciation events – the list goes on!  Then they go home and help with their kids’ homework, make sure they eat right, play outside (or taxi them to sports practice), and get enough sleep.  Then they do it again the next day.

Other Moms work outside the home, but still find time to do all the afterschool stuff with their kids, and still try to help out with volunteering when they can in the evenings and weekends.

The good news to exhausted parents is – it makes a difference!  Here’s some proof (see 2011 National PTA Public Policy Agenda   http://www.pta.org/2011_PP_Agenda.pdf):

“Over 40 years of research shows that when families are engaged, students score higher on tests, earn higher grades, attend school regularly, have better social skills, demonstrate improved behavior, adapt well to school, graduate from high school, and pursue postsecondary education, regardless of parents’ education level, ethnicity, or income level.  A recent study by the University of Chicago found that family engagement was one of the five essential components of turning around struggling schools, as important as teacher professional development and curriculum alignment. 

Family engagement can raise student academic achievement so substantially that schools would need to increase spending by more than $1,000 per pupil to gain the same results.”  Now that is having an impact!

This year the US Congress is due to re-authorize the No Child Left Behind Act – that wonderful federal law also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).  We will probably talk more about this contentious bit of legislation, but I wanted to let you know that Congress sees how important families are to schools.  This month, Democrats and Republicans (together!) will introduce in both the Senate and House the Family Engagement in Education Act of 2011.  The Act strengthens family engagement in the ESEA and will:

•         Provide guidance and incentives to schools, districts, and states on how to use research-based strategies to engage families; and

•         Strengthen and safeguard the sole federal parent engagement program, the Parental Information and Resource Centers.

 It is great that Congress recognizes what we see every day – families make a huge difference in schools.

So I hope all you Mom volunteers who work so hard get Mother’s Day off – and THANK YOU for all you do!