Word: programer
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
While the concept of parent academies - in which towns or school districts offer what are essentially classes and workshops on parenting skills - has been around for more than a decade, several larger cities are starting or expanding such programs in an effort to engage parents who are otherwise uninvolved in their child's education. Philadelphia has invested heavily in this year's launch of a comprehensive and wide-ranging program for parents. Boston is reviving its Parent University following an earlier version's demise due to budget cuts. And Miami's Parent Academy, now in its fifth year, offers more...
...science. And then there's the general confusion that often comes from dealing with a bureaucracy as byzantine as the typical American school district. "There are parents who are just not as well informed about the way schools work," says Karen Mapp, director of the Education Policy and Management Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "The policies, the procedures, what state test scores mean - it's not that they don't care; they just don't know how." (See pictures of the college dorm's evolution...
...says. "And there's 40 years of research that indicates a pretty positive relationship between families being engaged in their children's education and positive effects on students in terms of their academic achievement." Mapp is currently helping write a case study on Miami's Parent Academy program, which is one of the nation's most successful big-city attempts in this area. Privately funded by local philanthropists (it is in the midst of a three-year, $18 million grant from the Knight Foundation) and businesses, the Parent Academy has seen more than 120,000 people participate in its workshops...
...arrived immigrants don't understand what they can do to support their child's success, and they don't understand the system - there's no point in going to the school board when you're concerned about your child's homework," says Anne Thompson, director of the Miami-Dade program. Because of language issues, she often sees students having to do their parents' jobs in terms of navigating school bureaucracy. (See pictures of teens and how they would vote...
...will be a tricky issue that is likely to polarize everybody," Dr. Nicholas Muraguri, director of the National AIDS/STI Control Program, tells TIME. "But what we are saying is that we cannot as a country socially exclude these groups and hope that we will win the war against HIV at the same time." (See TIME's pictures of the crisis in Kenya...