Here’s an excerpt from The USA Today Network regarding The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which replaces No Child Left Behind, (NCLB)
More parental involvement
Expect broader efforts to get parents engaged in the education of kids through the creation of state family engagement centers. It’s a continuation of a program once funded under NCLB.
But this effort “is more robust,” said Shannon Sevier, vice president of advocacy for the National PTA. “We believe family engagement has a huge impact on the academic trajectory of every child. Once you get parents engaged, they don’t un-engage.”
The centers will likely help promote the various ways they should be engaged in their kids’ learning. Many, Sevier said, “are sometimes unaware that they’re welcome in the schools or they don’t know how to be of value in their own individual ways.”
Engagement is as different as families. Sevier described her own efforts, saying that when her three children were young and she was a single, working parent, it took the form of attending evening events, attending weekend fund-raisers and finding various ways to communicate with teachers. It evolved to include writing study guides and hosting study sessions for tests. Now, with her children in high school and college, it involves staging large events.
In addition to the centers, the ESSA requires schools that receive federal grant money because they have large populations of poor children to set aside some of the money for family engagement activities.
