CHICAGO – As part of a key strategic initiative, the Public Library Association (PLA) has released a free promotional toolkit designed to help libraries raise awareness of family engagement through libraries. This new resource can be used to supplement libraries’ marketing, fundraising, community relations and political advocacy work.
The term “family engagement” describes a shared responsibility among families, educators and communities to support children’s learning and development. Building upon the early-childhood literacy success of Every Child Ready to Read@ your library® (ECRR), PLA established a Family Engagement Initiative in 2015 to help libraries serve families of all types with children of all ages.
Public libraries are critical to family engagement, given their ability to develop strong and lasting relationships with families, engage all members of the family no matter their ages or interests, and offer access to afterschool, weekend and summer programming, particularly in communities lacking many resources.
“Family engagement is all about nurturing the knowledge, attitudes, values, and behaviors that enable motivated, enthusiastic, and successful learners,” explains Clara N. Bohrer, co-chair of the task force and director of the West Bloomfield Township (Michigan) Public Library. “In libraries, that means forming respectful partnerships with parents and caregivers, and providing them with information, guidance, and opportunities to be active in their children’s learning and development.”
The Family Engagement Toolkit was developed in partnership with the American Library Association (ALA), as part of ALA’s Libraries Transform public awareness campaign. Best known for its signature “Because” statements, Libraries Transform was created to help libraries of all kinds communicate in one clear, energetic voice.
The Toolkit offers both strategy and tactics for family engagement advocates, including message points, customizable graphics, promotional ideas, and program examples from IDEABOOK: Libraries for Families, a family engagement publication released in 2017 by PLA and the Global Family Research Project. This is the second toolkit PLA has developed through the Libraries Transform campaign; a toolkit on Health Literacy was released last year.
Accessing the Toolkit
Registration on the Libraries Transform website is required to download the materials. To access the new Family Engagement Toolkit, please begin by clicking here. The link will bring you to a password-protected landing page where you must enter your existing credentials, or create a new registration, to proceed. Once the login/registration process is complete, reopen the URL http://ilovelibraries.org/librariestransform/family-engagement-toolkit to access the full toolkit.
For more information on PLA and family engagement, or to share examples of what your library is doing to engage parents in the education of children and youth, please contact Scott Allen at sallen@ala.org. Libraries are also encouraged to add their program information to the Living IDEABOOK, an online repository of family engagement ideas and success stories.
With 44 million consumers owing student debt that now reaches $1.5 trillion and still climbing, a lot of people want to better understand how and why this unsustainable debt trajectory can be better managed. For Black consumers who typically have less family wealth than other races and ethnicities, borrowing is more frequent, and as a result, often leads to five figure debts for undergraduate programs and well beyond $100,000 for graduate or professional degrees.
Besides deep debt incurred to gain a college education, another sphere of concern presents yet another financial hurdle: student loan defaults.
New research by Judith Scott-Clayton of the Brookings Institution, focuses on explaining these defaults and what happens once they occur. Her research shows that a large racial gap exists in default rates between Black student loan borrowers and their White counterparts. This gap can only be partially explained by controlling for multiple socio-economic and educational attainment factors.
After accounting for variations in family wealth and income, differences in degree attainment, college grade point average and even post-college income and employment, a stubborn and statistically significant 11 percentage point gap remains between Black and White student loan borrowers. Before adjusting for these factors, the gap is 28 percent, with Black borrowers defaulting at a rate of more than double that of Whites—49 percent compared to 21 percent over 12 years.
The research also finds a strong disadvantage to attending for-profit colleges, in which Black students disproportionately enroll. More than a decade after leaving school, and accounting for the same background and attainment factors listed above, loan defaults of for-profit college borrowers exceed those of two–year public sector peers by 11 percent.
The author points to the need to understand what influences the “stark” remaining divide.
“The better we can understand what drives these patterns,” wrote Scott-Clayton, “the better policymakers can target their efforts to improve student loan outcomes.”
Among these influences are the widening racial wealth gap. As Black student debt is typically heavier and often takes longer to repay, the ability to build wealth becomes a heightened challenge. Years that might have been opportunities to become homeowners or begin other investments can have lengthy deferrals, due to large student loan debts.
Similarly, a new report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) that focused largely on student loan repayment reached a similar conclusion. Authored by Thomas Conkling, the new CFPB research examining borrowers who were unable to fully repay their student loans early, “suggests that their required monthly student loan payments constrained their ability to pay down other debts.” CFPB also found that the typical student loan repayment lasts a full decade with equal monthly payments.
Further, borrowers repaying on schedule are not more likely to become first-time homeowners.
A portion of the Brookings report provides useful information that could help those at risk or in default.
Loan “default is a status, not a permanent characteristic.” Four ways to get out of default are cited: rehabilitation, consolidation, paying in full, or have a loan discharged.
For my money, paying in full is seldom a practical option unless someone’s lottery numbers hit a jackpot. But the other three options offered could begin to chart a path in important ways.
Rehabilitation of student loan defaults can only be used one time. It also requires, according to Brookings, successfully making nine payments over 10 months.
A second option, consolidating defaulted loans, can end default more quickly and is used by more than half of Blacks who have defaulted.
In recent years, loan discharge has been frequently pursued, especially by former students of now-defunct for-profit institutions. Others choosing public service careers may be eligible for loan forgiveness depending upon the type of loan, servicer assistance and employment.
Any loan default will worsen credit scores and will be a part of a consumer’s credit record for up to seven years. During this time, the cost of credit for other goods and services will be higher. It will also cost many job applicants to lose out on employment opportunities. For several years, credit score screening has become a part of the job application process for many employers.
“The numbers show that our current system is not working, and that higher education is not providing the pathway to financial stability that it once accomplished,” Policy Counsel and Special Assistant to the President of the Center for Responsible Lending, Ashley Harrington said. “We need federal and state policymakers to take concrete steps to effectively address this crisis, such as better regulation of for-profit colleges.
“As for loan servicers, it is time to hold them accountable for their errors,” continued Harrington.
“Standardizing income-based repayment plans, and when appropriate, refinancing of student loans, should be offered as alternative options before allowing borrowers to default.”
Charlene Crowell is the Communications Deputy Director with the Center for Responsible Lending. She can be reached at charlene.crowell@responsiblelending.org.
In Spring 2018, students at Burke High School (BHS) came together with two BHS teachers, Amelia Little (Navarrete) and Chopper (Edgar) Johnson, to create a unique project about untold stories of disenfranchised, marginalized societies called Finding a Voice. This past weekend, Burke was honored at the national New Tech Conference in St. Louis, Missouri for their outstanding work.
Through support from the ECMC Foundation, Burke High School was awarded a grant to participate in the New Tech Network (NTN) program for the 2017-18 school year. With over 20 years of impact in improving teaching and learning through project-based learning, the New Tech Network, a non- profit organization, supports schools and districts throughout the country in ensuring college and career success for all students.
Community members, school administrators, and staff were excited about the doors this partnership could open for students at Burke. As it turns out, the administrators, staff, and students were ready to walk through those doors together and did so in a way that earned them NTN’s 2018 Best in Network award. The Best in Network honor is given to an NTN project that exemplifies the goal of successfully combining active exploration, application, authenticity, and academic rigor.
Finding a Voice was a Burke project across the dual content areas of world literature and government. The project involved research and collaboration, and asked students to design graphic novels about disenfranchised and marginalized groups around the world. To assist with the graphic novels, Little and Johnson reached out to the local public library system, which enthusiastically joined the team.
Students reached the project’s final creative product through conducting independent research on living conditions for various marginalized societies across the globe and interviews with student refugees from other countries, including a student of similar age from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
To demonstrate and share their research and findings, students wrote first-person narratives and storyboarded the plot of their graphic novel.
BHS sophomores, Trinity Frost and James Snipes, along with Little and Johnson presented Finding a Voice at the conference on Saturday, July 14, 2018. Snipes and Frost led the presentation in front of hundreds of teachers, administrators, and educational leaders from across the country, expertly and enthusiastically discussing their project, findings, and fielding questions from the audience. At the conclusion of their presentation, the group representing Burke High School received a standing ovation from the audience.
The final straw broke in November when Aimy Steele got a call from the central office asking her to find space for five more classrooms.
Steele, the principal of Beverly Hills STEM Elementary School in Concord, N.C., about 25 miles from Charlotte, had already moved an English-as-a-second-language class into the library and an after-school program from a portable unit into the cafeteria to comply with a state law mandating lower class sizes in elementary grades.
The mandate, which she said did not come with extra money for new teachers or classrooms—school construction is funded at the county-level—came after financially-strapped districts had shed hundreds of teaching assistants.
“That was kind of the last moment, where I said, ‘this is absolutely ridiculous,’” said Steele, who filed paperwork to run on the Democratic ticket in North Carolina’s 82nd district just a few weeks later. She will face Republican Linda P. Johnson, a nine-term incumbent and chairwoman of the House K-12 education and appropriations committees, in November.
Steele, 39, is among a handful of current and former school leaders—including principals and assistant principals—who are running for local and state offices this year. Their numbers are dwarfed by teacher-candidates, who, fed up with low salaries and cuts to general education funding, marched on state capitols in the spring. (An Education Week analysis found at least 156 teachers had filed to run for state offices this year, with 25 so far winning their party primaries and 42 advancing without a primary challenge.)
Principals Want Bigger Voice in Education Policy
But the small number of principals who are running hope their experience running schools will give them a bigger voice in state education policy and other policy areas that affect education. The school leaders argue that many of the hot-button issues that legislators are wrestling with are school-connected—whether it’s the opioid crisis, the economy, transportation, infrastructure, or healthcare.
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Thirty Hampton City Schools educators spent mornings July 23-26 learning the details regarding the first African Arrival in English North America from subject matter experts. Thirty Hampton City Schools educators spent mornings July 23-26 learning the details regarding the first African Arrival in English North America from subject matter experts. The initiative is part of an effort to clarify the details of the 1619 arrival so that youth of Hampton, Virginia, and the nation learn the facts of this pivotal occurrence in American history.
As witnessed and recorded by John Rolfe, the first tobacco planter in the Virginia colony, on August 20, 1619, the White Lion entered the Chesapeake Bay, docked at Point Comfort (present day Hampton) with Africans from the country Angola, of the Bantu culture. They spoke the languages of the Kimbundu and Kikongo. Many were literate and hailed from highly organized societies.
Two of those Africans, named Antoney and Isabell, became servants of Captain William Tucker, Commander of the fort at Point Comfort. Around 1623 or 1624, the union of Isabell and Antoney birthed the first African child in English North America, named William Tucker. The other arriving Africans were interspersed within the Virginia colony, from Elizabeth City County to Jamestown.
Hampton 2019 Commemorative Commission Co-Chairs Dr. Colita Fairfax and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Claude Vann, were among the discussion leaders.
Beyoncé Knowles-Carter announces the eight recipients of the Homecoming Scholars Award for the 2018-2019 academic year.
The Homecoming Scholars Award Program for 2018-2019 is a merit program and was announced in April. It is the second scholarship merit program from Beyoncé Knowles-Carter and BeyGOOD. The Formation Scholars Award Program was announced in the spring of 2017 and was open to female students across a variety of studies.
The Homecoming Scholars Award Program, announced after Beyoncé’s brilliant first weekend Coachella performance, an homage to excellence in education and a celebration of the homecoming weekend experience, named four universities and extended the program to all qualifying students at the universities, regardless of gender.
The 2018-2019 disciplines include literature, creative arts, African-American studies, science, education, business, communications, social sciences, computer science, engineering and more. All applicants must maintain a 3.5 GPA or above.
Google.org partnered with BeyGOOD following Beyoncé’s second weekend Coachella performance, to add four more schools, including Fisk University, the alma mater of Beyoncé’s father, Mathew Knowles and Morehouse College, the alma mater of Parkwood President & COO, Steve Pamon.
All qualifying applicants submitted a 1,000-word essay about one African or African-American thought leader in their field who has inspired them to achieve their goals (educational, professional, and/or community-driven). The essay included how they plan to contribute to history through their own life’s work. All finalists and the eight recipients were selected by committees from the colleges and universities.
Former Houston Texans player and FBISD Alumni Devard Darling recently awarded college scholarships to deserving students through his As One Foundation.
The $1,000 scholarships were awarded to ten Fort Bend Independent School District (FBISD) high school seniors at the 10th Annual Devard & Devaughn Darling Scholarship Award Ceremony at Center Stage Art Gallery, in Sugar Land, Texas.
The As One Foundation was established in 2007 by Devard Darling, an NFL wide receiver, in memory of his twin brother, Devaughn Darling, with the mission to unlock and unleash the full potential of youth while encouraging them to achieve their dreams in the face of life challenges.
Since Devaughn’s tragic death during a pre-season conditioning workout at Florida State University due to sickle cell trait exertion, the mission later became to educate and increase awareness of sickle cell trait while encouraging youth to achieve their dreams in the face of life challenges. The Devard & Devaughn Darling Scholarship Awards is Darling’s way of turning the loss of his identical twin brother, into something positive. It’s also a way to say thank you to the people who helped them both succeed as student-athletes.
Devard Darling, As One Founder and Scholarship Recipient Alice Opiyo
“I just know Devaughn is smiling down to know we’ve awarded $100,000 in scholarships in these first ten years of the As One Foundation,” says Darling. “It is so important to show these young people they are worth our time and money. So many did that for me and my brother, now this is my chance to pay it forward.”
The As One Foundation takes its name from the fact that the doctor had been hearing two hearts beating As One while their mother carried them, unaware she was having twins. Devard lived on to fulfill his and his brother’s shared dream to play professional football and to give back to both their homes – Houston, Texas and their native Bahamas.
The 2018 Scholarship recipients are: Tyra James, Kyser Lim, Baylee Suzanne Redmond and Robert Wilson of Austin High School; Jane Akwitti, Samantha Alarcon and Wade Freeman III of Bush High School; Alice Opiyo of Clements High School; Oluwatoni Ajala of Dulles High School and Camden Kelly of Elkins High School.
July 26, 2018 — During today’s meeting of the Federal Commission on School Safety, NSBA’s Chief Legal Officer, Francisco Negron, Jr. shared our insight on how information-sharing and accountability supports school officials’ commitment to eliminate disruptive behavior and violence and ensure that our schools are safe learning environments. School boards set rigorous standards for student conduct and through these policies set disciplinary practices and procedures to maximize the opportunities for all students and provide them with safe and successful in-school experiences. While decisions in matters of student discipline, particularly as they relate to instances of individual behavior, are best left in the hands of local education experts, there is a significant role for the federal government. Greater and sustained federal resources are vital to helping support and sustain school resource officers, school counseling, emergency preparedness and response training and locally determined programs that expand access to mental health services and support comprehensive “wraparound” services. Collaboration and communication with local law enforcement agencies is an essential part of prevention, preparedness, mitigation and emergency response and recovery plans. The removal of barriers that get in the way of the collaboration of such agencies will greatly benefit local education leaders and the children they serve.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 case barred mandatory “agency fees,” dealing a telling financial blow to teachers’ unions. Whether this is a death blow or a turning point will be determined by the vision and persuasiveness of union leaders. It’s a classic crisis that presents both peril and opportunity.
The perils are obvious. The predicted loss of revenue will mean diminished capacity for the unions and will likely translate into diminished influence and power at the federal, state, and local levels as well as within the Democratic Party. Teachers’ unions have been a potent force in all of these quarters. In the eyes of some, the unions have been a regressive, conservative (as in status quo-oriented), anti-reform force in the field. In the eyes of most of their members and some of the public, they have done an admirable job of standing up for teachers individually and collectively, bringing the voice and expertise of practitioners to the policy table, and assuring fair, middle-class compensation for members.
There has never been any doubt that teachers need a voice and protection in the education sector. Teaching has long been an exploited, overworked, and undercompensated field. The advent of teachers’ associations in the 20th century signaled an end to some of the most egregious violations of fair treatment by education managers. The unions stood tall and insisted on fairness and equity. Even today in states where unions have already been disempowered by “right to work” state laws that prohibit unions from charging fees from nonmembers, teachers have taken to the streets. In places like West Virginia and Oklahoma, teachers have organized outside of conventional unions in “wildcat Facebook” fashion and have become a potent, successful movement for fair compensation and better funding for schools.
“There has never been any doubt that teachers need a voice and protection in the education sector.”
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If principals and teachers understand how to measure student growth and support students in reaching their potential and if they truly value the ability to deliver a measure that an interim assessment like MAP® Growth™ provides, then consistent data practices can become part of a school or district culture. So believes Cindy Keever, Director of Student Support at the Westfield Washington School District in Hamilton County, Indiana.
Since NWEA assessments and data practices have become an embedded, integrated system of evaluating, understanding, and educating throughout the past decade, Westfield Washington School educators feel confident about their ability to understand where students are in their learning process, no matter how their buildings, classrooms, or instructional groupings are reconfigured over time.
How did MAP Growth data come to be central to the culture of learning?
The district made a firm commitment to providing professional learning for teachers and administrators, to help all become more sophisticated users of data. To this end, they have taken all the Professional Learning (PL) workshops offered by NWEA and continue to deepen their practice. They also created buy-in for the NWEA growth model by making sure it was—and continues to be—completely visible to its entire learning community. Every student, teacher, and parent understands that MAP Growth data shows how kids are growing—and that each student knows where he or she can progress further.
The final straw broke in November when Aimy Steele got a call from the central office asking her to find space for five more classrooms.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in the Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31 case barred mandatory “agency fees,” dealing a telling financial blow to teachers’ unions. Whether this is a death blow or a turning point will be determined by the vision and persuasiveness of union leaders. It’s a classic crisis that presents both peril and opportunity.
