Paying parents to help kids learn

**hadassahchana**[$] · #1 09-16-2008, 09:13 AM

I LOVE this! A school district in Des Moines is giving parents a stipend to attend after-school classes teaching them how to become involved in helping their kids. Parents who've previously felt very disenfranchised are becoming enthustiastic partners in their children's education, and it seems to be working.

There are some critics who say it cheapens education, but there seem to be a lot of happy parents and students whose parents participate are doing better academically. For once, someone's realized that poverty and lack of education on the parents' part just might have adverseley affected the education of their children, and this plan seems so sensible to me. Yay for Iowa!

What do you guys think about this? Just reading the article made me happy!

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #2 09-16-2008, 09:30 AM

New York City BOE's attempt at something similar started last year but I haven't seen any preliminary reports on results yet.

**drmomentum**[$] · #3 09-16-2008, 10:33 AM

I haven't had time to read the article yet, but I agree with you that it is a good thing when people realize that socioeconomic indicators are a predictor, and they're a hurdle that students face.

We had 60 teachers in our center yesterday for a Math Education Networking event and we revealed some of our experimental data from our large scale Texas studies. Socioeconomic factors were a strong predictor, but we don't have a scientific explanation as to why (we have many opinions, and many of them seem likely, but no data).

Even with the gains we saw in adding our activities to the curriculum, gains were made undemocratically. That is to say, the more affluent white kids had the same measure of improvement as the poor Hispanic kids. We closed the gap only between the disadvantaged treatment group and the affluent no-treatment group.

A program like this might have problems with scalability and sustainability, but those problems would be worth working around if effect could be proven.

-JP

**lynnzop**[$] · #4 09-16-2008, 10:38 AM

I like the idea in some communities. Parents definitely need to be involved and show good example for their kids to succeed. If paying them a small stipend is a way to get their involvement, so be it.

I would like to know more about what happens if the parent doesn't follow through with the commitment they sign up for.

**Helen_B**[$] · #5 09-21-2008, 12:47 AM

I think this is a wonderful idea. It sounds as if these parents are learning new ideas, new ways for them to improve not only education, but also family life. I think it was money well spent. I can't see how it cheapens education at all.

I think money spent proactively can be money very well spent. I was involved in a project that taught women how to run a home day care, and the participants were paid to attend. They also received a stipend for childcare. There were guest speakers, and the women learned quite a bit about child development, and how to run a business. There was a nice graduation ceremony at the end, with refreshments, and everyone dressed up and brought their families.

Within 6 months, 80% of these women were employed, although not necessarily in home daycare. The class had given them the opportunity for real personal improvement. The funding had given them an opportunity that would have been unavailable to them before.

Magick1 · #6 09-21-2008, 12:03 PM

Amazing, I live near DSM and I hadn't heard of this. Do ya'll think I live under a rock now?

realtraveller · #7 09-22-2008, 01:47 PM

Call me a cynic, but I doubt that $25 is going to get anyone to consistently, over the course of the entire school year, help the kid with homework, turn off the TV etc. If the prospect of not having your child be a school dropout and sending that child to college isn't enough motivation for a parent to create a homework-friendly environment, is $25 going to do it?

My experience is that the better the child is in school, the more likely the parent is to be involved. I just look at attendance at the regular Parent Nights at our school. The AP classes are packed with parents. The regular classes have poorer parent attendance. And this is in a relatively all middle class school district.

**mtomm**[$] · #8 09-22-2008, 02:08 PM

Quote:

realtraveller said

Call me a cynic, but I doubt that $25 is going to get anyone to consistently, over the course of the entire school year, help the kid with homework, turn off the TV etc. If the prospect of not having your child be a school dropout and sending that child to college isn't enough motivation for a parent to create a homework-friendly environment, is $25 going to do it?

My experience is that the better the child is in school, the more likely the parent is to be involved. I just look at attendance at the regular Parent Nights at our school. The AP classes are packed with parents. The regular classes have poorer parent attendance. And this is in a relatively all middle class school district.

We recently were invited to attend an open house for our daughter's math class. She is in the dummy math class. It's okay, we know it, we prefer she be there than struggling even worse in another class. However, she is an excellent student in any other class.

The class has about 17 students. Three parents and one grandparent were in attendance. How sad is that.

**drmomentum**[$] · #9 09-22-2008, 04:03 PM

We can keep guessing, or someone can do some research.

I can tell you that hoping the problem will go away isn't going to do it, because lots of people have already been trying that.

-JP

**mjfrombuffalo**[$] · #10 09-22-2008, 04:15 PM

Hubby's recent parent/teacher night had a great turnout. Highlights of parent/teacher discussions included:

Parent says: My child doesn't like to study. What can you do about this?

Hubby wants to say: Yes, and...? This is my problem exactly how? You're the parent, right? This is what the child is or isn't doing in your home, right? When I'm not there? OK, so he doesn't like to study. I don't like getting up for work at 5:15am every day. Sometimes we all have to do stuff we don't like to do, and you had better help your son figure out soon that whether or not he likes to study is immaterial, because if he does not study, he will not pass my class."

Hubby actually said: If he doesn't study, he won't pass.

I don't know for sure if this is the same child whose parents got a note about how he doesn't even know his times tables yet and needs to practice them at home, then came in the next day without his homework because his mother told him football practice was more important than his math homework... but I wouldn't be surprised.

Magick1 · #11 09-26-2008, 12:38 AM

Quote:

mjfrombuffalo said

I don't know for sure if this is the same child whose parents got a note about how he doesn't even know his times tables yet and needs to practice them at home, then came in the next day without his homework because his mother told him football practice was more important than his math homework... but I wouldn't be surprised.

We have such a huge push for people to get their children to be excellent at something so that we the parents can "retire early, in style, have a better life than we did growing up" etc. (It seems). I see so many ppl pushing their children to excel at a sport, music, or whatever.

I wonder what is happening in our society.

Then, I stop and read an article regarding college athletes in my home state. Not super huge colleges, but Big 10 or Big 12. They have criminal activity. It gets poopooed out to be something much less than it is.

We have a football guy that a couple of years ago raped a girl (former girlfried, IIRC) and he forced her to have intercourse 2 times. He was whining becuase he wants to have his probation (he pled guilty and is on probation for about 4 years or something like it) so he could get a professional football career going and this probation inconvenience was costing him potential, lucrative contracts.

The hearings have been going on and the guy wants to go to France now, but has 2 years left where he's got to check in with the probation officer, etc. They are freaking letting him go and making arrangements with France officials to "cover the probabtion". Looks like these guys don't have to be held accountable, so why not everyone else do it too.

Excuse the expression, screw the school/learning aspect, go for sports and scholarships, get pro contract....you are literally in the money. Makes me so mad. But, what can a Joe Blow person do about the big money making machines.

(Sorry for the tirade, but these stories keep happening in the pros, college, etc. So, why should anyone be held accountable for anything - so many big players have good attorneys, they get a slap on the wrist and are back playing.)

sleeper54 · #12 09-26-2008, 02:49 AM

Quote:

Magick1 said

Amazing, I live near DSM and I hadn't heard of this. Do ya'll think I live under a rock now?

Do not feel bad Kim. I am a city of DSM resident and have not heard of this program. This a few weeks after a highly contested school board election where the actions and results were being widely discussed.

It is almost enought to make me question how active the program really is. If they had not quoted the board president I really would have doubted it is even true...

That said, the city of DSM's schools' overall performance level has slid precipitously over the last decade or so. Many students are not reading at grade level, not just poor, disadvantaged black students.

Of coures, the slate of incumbents were all returned to the board, despite a slate of opponents gathering more votes overall than the incumbents. But dividing the votes up dropped all of them behind the incumbents.

Of course, after the election one of them crowed about how the people had heard the truth and returned them to office because they were doing such a good job.

Uhh . . .no.

No wonder our school district is in such educational disarray. What a joke.

...tom...
.

Magick1 · #13 09-27-2008, 03:03 PM

Yeah, that election was a joke.

Quote:

sleeper54 said

Do not feel bad Kim. I am a city of DSM resident and have not heard of this program. This a few weeks after a highly contested school board election where the actions and results were being widely discussed.

It is almost enought to make me question how active the program really is. If they had not quoted the board president I really would have doubted it is even true...

That said, the city of DSM's schools' overall performance level has slid precipitously over the last decade or so. Many students are not reading at grade level, not just poor, disadvantaged black students.

Of coures, the slate of incumbents were all returned to the board, despite a slate of opponents gathering more votes overall than the incumbents. But dividing the votes up dropped all of them behind the incumbents.

Of course, after the election one of them crowed about how the people had heard the truth and returned them to office because they were doing such a good job.

Uhh . . .no.

No wonder our school district is in such educational disarray. What a joke.

...tom...
.