Resources from Center for Parent Leadership

Center for Parent Leadership

Resource Title: No Child Left Behind: What's In It For Parents
Price: $15
Author: Anne Henderson
Description: CPL's guide, No Child Left Behind: What’s in it for Parents, spotlights six key leverage points in the law that parents can use to: get information about school and student performance; use the information to influence education policies and programs; and hold schools more accountable for results. In easy-to-understand terms, parents will learn which schools are affected by the law — plus how, when, and what they can do to advocate for better schools and quality teaching. “As a parent leader, you want to be at the table when your school is addressing such issues as closing the achievement gaps between different groups of students, recruiting and keeping highly-qualified teachers, or school safety,” said the guide’s author, Anne Henderson, an expert on parent engagement and community organizing.

Resource Title: Parents and Teachers Talking Together Facilitators Guide
Price: $75
Description:

Responding to the growing need for increased parent and teacher communication, the Center for Parent Leadership has created a workshop and trainer's guide that enable parent leaders, community organizers and educators to fortify relationships between parents and teachers through focused discussions on how they can work together to improve education in their community.

Parents and Teachers Talking Together encourages communication by addressing two important questions:

• What do we want for our students?
• What do we need to do to get what we want for our students?

The guide takes users through a four-hour meeting where these issues are discussed. And it shows how groups are using the exercise to identify shared concerns and priorities and set in motion the solutions required to make a real difference for students.

Resource Title: The Case for Parent Leadership
Price: $10
Description:

When parents have information, skills and organizational support, they are enabled to become decision making partners in their local schools.

Readers of the Case for Parent Leadership will find:

• The research-based rationale about how parent leadership programs can help educators deliver on the promise of standards-based reform
• Examples of successful parent leadership in action from inner-city New York to rural Kentucky
• Checklists and mini-quizzes to gauge how parent-friendly your schools are
• The differences among a Fortress School, Come-if-we-Call School and a Partnership School
• Practical advice for parents, educators and policymakers on what they can do—right now—to promote the kind of parent involvement that will have a sustained impact on student learning.