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March 16, 2006
LA Workshop
Parents, teachers, and administrators assembled in Los Angeles last week at the annual CACE Conference. CACE stands for California Association of Compensatory Education. I hadn’t attended this conference before, but I was glad I did this year. It was well worth my while.
Most of us in education are concerned about the best way to deal with implementation of all the requirements for No Child Left Behind (NCLB). The CACE group is specifically working to help parents, teachers, and administrators of all schools with NCLB but focuses mostly on schools in high-poverty.
What I found was a dedicated group of folks doing just what the rest of us are, trying hard to help their children learn. Each one wanted to do the very best they could for their own children or the children they serve in their schools.
I had been asked to do a workshop session on parent invovlement. When I do a workshop, I usually ask questions like, "What do you see as success for your child?" I ask that of anyone in the group who’s a parent. I also ask of the educators in the group, "What do you see as success for the children in your class/school?" I get many of the same answers-successful, happy, responsible, motivated kids. I don’t get answers like: score at the proficient or above proficient level on the 5th grade STAR assessment. I don’t even get read, write, and do math.
Reading, writing, and assessment are school vehicles to successful, happy, responsible, motivated kids. These skills, taught in school and reinforced at home, are the building blocks to being able to creating a life for yourself as an adult. They are the tools for reading your email, balancing your checkbook, and trying out a new recipie as well as the ones needed for running a company.
Today in schools we use curriculum that is geared toward standards of learning. A few years ago we used the curriculum in textbooks. Whatever the materias we use, we are teaching to build skills and abilities in children so they can think, plan, and determine what they want to do with their lives.
I found the CACE group in downtown LA to be just as interested in the success of their children as another group I work with in Red Bluff, CA. Weither it's inner city or rural outbacks, it’s about children. It’s about their success. It’s about schools and parents working together to make sure that happens.
Posted by Dr Joni at March 16, 2006 07:56 AM