In these stressful times, many Parent Teacher Association (PTA) leaders are finding membership recruitment and retention to be particularly challenging. The Black Star Community PTA in Chicago has found some unique methods of getting their community to support students and families, and join PTA. The basis for their efforts is in recognizing the…

Parent involvement is essential to student success. However, it is also often a struggle for even the most experienced teacher to get parents involved. There are many barriers to parent involvement including issues related to parents finding the time, understanding its importance, and speaking a different language in the home. That is the reality…

The Midwest Expansion of the Child-Parent Center Education Program (MCPC) is a pre-K to 3rd grade intervention program aimed at improving economically disadvantaged children's school success by enhancing continuity in instruction and increasing parental involvement. Opened in Chicago in the 1960s, this school reform model has undergone significant…

Budget constraints and difficulty raising taxes limit school districts from expanding education programming, even when research shows that additional expenditures would generate economic benefits that are greater than costs. Recently, coalitions of private investors, philanthropists, education practitioners, and government finance analysts have…

In the United States, progressive education programs have historically failed to take hold among low-income families, even when that population has been their initial focus. Instead, these programs tend to become popular among middle-class or affluent families. Some research suggests that working-class/poor families' expectations of education may…

In spring 2012, Sherry Kaufman, a consultant at Francis W. Parker School in Chicago, was asked to support kindergarten teachers in deepening their practice of constructivism and exploring the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. Central to such an approach is the belief that all learning is socially constructed through interaction…

Making Connections was the Annie E. Casey Foundation's signature place-based, community-change initiative of the 2000s. It sought to build on previous work and launch an effort focused firmly on the framework of family strengthening. The Foundation started Making Connections in 22 places, focusing eventually on first 10, then seven sites. It…

At both state and federal levels, partnerships of schools, parents, and communities have become an educational priority. Are teacher education programs adequately preparing preservice teachers for these partnerships? Focus groups of College of Education (COE) faculty from five Illinois Professional Learner's Partnership universities were conducted…

At a meeting in DuPage County, Illinois, in April 1972, speakers representing the PTA, students, school teachers and administrators, outdoor education, the Illinois School Boards Association, and the Open Lands Project voiced enthusiastic support for introducing environmental education into the school curriculum. One of the County's several…

Parent/family involvement is an important factor in successful schools or schools reporting improved student achievement. Interviews of 50 southern Illinois principals identified 10 highly successful strategies for improving such involvement, including parent/student switch days, parent/student fundraising, teacher/parent roundtable discussions,…

University-community partnerships are widely recognized as critical to the success of community research and advocacy work but difficult to form and sustain. This article will describe a unique facet of that partnership, namely the collaboration between mental health clinicians and community consultants, a partnership that our data suggest was a…

Of the 31 migrant projects funded in fiscal year 1974 (FY 74), 27 (11 regular term and 16 summer term) were classroom programs. There were 365 children enrolled during the regular term and 1,601 during the summer. Children were recruited through: visits by school personnel to the migrant camps, information supplied by other project participants,…

This manual is designed to inform parents about their role in the Behavior Analysis Follow Through Program. This program was designed to meet the educational needs of low-income students in the kindergarten through third grades and was validated as an effective and exemplary educational program by the U. S. Office of Education. The program…

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires that each state participating in the federal early intervention program establish a state interagency coordinating council (SICC) to assist and advise the state lead agencies in achieving a coordinated service delivery system. Some states have also established local interagency…

This report contains a summation of the data collected on the Fiscal Year 1973 Title I Elementary Secondary Education Act of 1965 projects in the State of Illinois. The report covers many issues which are relevant to the Title I projects. Such issues are: participation of local educational agencies, program objectives, results of the instructional…