2013 Title I Conference

Showing contempt for a half-century of unrefuted research, public policy now assumes that teachers alone can close the achievement gap between disadvantaged and middle class children. In this challenging climate for public education, teachers and other public school leaders have three tasks, each of which must be pursued simultaneously. First, educators must resist the reduction of expectations to improved performance on low-quality, high stakes standardized tests. Second, they must direct what resources they can to the provision of high quality early childhood, health, social service, and after school programs that can improve the readiness of disadvantaged children to learn, and to the mobilization of available resources for these purposes from other community institutions. And third, educators must become more outspoken about social and economic conditions that limit children’s ability to take advantage of public education, and about the imperative to fight politically to ameliorate these conditions.

This presentation will explain how to revitalize Title I School-Parent Compacts - moving from a routine requirement to a powerful tool for collaborating with families to improve their child's academic achievement. This workshop will show you how to engage parents in designing grade-level Compacts that are linked to the goals of the school improvement plan and use specific and meaningful learning strategies in the classroom and at home.

Participants will engage in interactive activities with sample templates and tools they can use right away along with a new 10-step process developed with Title I schools in Connecticut. They will learn about the research-based evidence that says why the process of truly engaging parents in creating the Compact is as important as the product. Participants will also take a tour of Connecticut's new online video coaching toolkit that walks schools through the process for creating a School-Parent Compact that will get results (website is freely available).

If Nelson Mandela can leave prison and become president of the country that imprisoned him, if man can reach the moon, if the Boston Red Sox can break a 90-year losing streak, then surely we can help students of color to become readers. Hunter addresses twelve pivotal understandings and practices that encourage successful reading -- from giving kids more access to books to knowing how to navigate nonfiction, stressing academic vocabulary, providing around-the-clock oral language opportunities, using response to intervention to break the cycle of failure, and supporting families of color, and more -- that every educator who works with a diverse population should understand. As Hunter maintains, "Reading is a civil right."

What really creates effective parents? How can we create sustainable, meaningful parent engagement that promotes student achievement? What produces positive parent leaders?

Hear success stories from districts across the nation that are involved with Parenting Partners—a pioneering, comprehensive, dynamic means for building positive, engaged parent leaders. Hear the best practices of more than 80,000 Title I parents. You’ll find evidence that parents can be a great solution in raising student achievement.

Patty Bunker, founder, author, and national trainer, will demonstrate key practices in parent engagement that are manageable, transferable, and sustainable. Practices include presenters in teams, multiplying parent leaders, the 40 Assets, Epstein's Six Types and more.

Entertaining, interactive, and practical, this session will deliver key strategies with fun, easy-to-present parent leadership skills and practical ideas for boosting student achievement through parent engagement.

It is crucial that we meet the language development needs of all students in order to close the word gap for young struggling readers—including English Language Learners and Special Education students. Today's K-2 children are more diverse than ever before, and this diversity provides a tremendous opportunity for educators to build upon the strengths that children bring to the table. Our children deserve high-quality instructions, practice, and assessment in foundational reading, and now is the time to deliver it.



Session attendees will:



• Learn practical strategies for developing English Language Proficiency for English Language Learners and students from diverse backgrounds.

• Learn techniques to developing foundational reading skills—including direct instruction, practice, and assessment.

• Learn how to accelerate reading growth by capitalizing on students' strengths and backgrounds.

By promoting an environment supportive of literacy and a culture of learning in schools, families and communities can work together to improve student achievement—in school and, ultimately, in life. In order to accomplish this, families must be motivated to participate, and communities must have local ownership and a direct connection to schools and other education systems. Participants in this session will learn strategies on how to effectively involve families and communities to serve the best interests of our nation’s most precious resource – our children – from the chairman of the National Family Engagement Alliance (NFEA) and former CEO of the National PTA, the nation’s largest child advocacy association of more that five million members nationwide. Come to this session to learn more about engaged, empowered families, connected communities, and students who are destined to succeed!

This session focuses on a research-based framework for leadership and learning in high poverty schools. Recent case studies from high-performing/high-poverty (HP / HP) schools provide compelling insight into what it takes to make a dramatic turnaround. This session will highlight 12 specific strategies that provide an essential foundation for success in any underperforming school. Practical study and planning tools will be provided to guide improvement in a participants own school or district. Through better understanding of how HP / HP schools achieve success with underachieving students who live in poverty, participants will acquire specific strategies and identify action steps to best support these students

Developing systemic and sustainable increases in Black male achievement continues to be elusive. There are no proven programs, researched-based or otherwise, to draw upon. The strategies required oftentimes prove too complex and unpalatable for many school leaders or classroom teachers. This session engages participants in the questions that must be asked, data that must be gathered, partnerships that must be established, and strategies that must be implemented to ensure systemic and sustainable increases in Black male achievement as outlined in the book, "Empowering African-American Males: A Guide to Increasing Black Male Achievement."



Participants learn how to shape peer culture, build partnerships, involve parents, reach out to the community, build on young men's dreams and aspirations, and develop an asset-based focus that forges relationships and taps into the intrinsic motivation to succeed.