Parent Revolution
Project Title
For a research project on public school families and capacity-building of parent leaders to understand instructional and support instructional quality in their schools
Date
Dec. 06, 2018
Duration
9 months
Description
Many parents, especially in low-income communities, find it difficult to evaluate quality instruction. Parents often base their understanding of high-quality instruction on anecdotes and brief interactions with teachers rather than on robust data and consistent information channels. Since 2009, Parent Revolution has been working with several thousand public school families in Los Angeles’ most underserved communities, both in a direct service capacity and to develop parent leadership so that parents can serve as effective advocates for their communities. With support from the Corporation, Parent Revolution will conduct a research study of parents on the subject of quality instruction. The study will inform the development of tools for families to use in their conversations with their teachers and their schools, and build the capacity of parent leaders to engage in evaluating instructional quality.
Website
Project Title
For a project to use school quality information to empower families
Date
Jun. 01, 2017
Duration
18 months
Description
In Los Angeles, home to the second largest school district and the largest charter school sector in the nation, inequitable access to a great education is exacerbated by a lack of reliable and useful information on school quality. Families in the Los Angeles Unified School District do not have access to any tool that allows them to understand the quality of their current school or their school options. Since 2009, Parent Revolution has worked with low-income families in Los Angeles to transform their schools through community organizing and more recently, through the Choice4LA program, has provided support to individual families as they navigate the public school choice process to find the best K-12 schools for their children. In their work with families, it is clear that the lack of parent engagement with understandable and comparable information on school quality has serious consequences for student achievement. With Corporation support, Parent Revolution will conduct research on how low-income families, and the community organizations that serve and influence these families, understand and use information on school quality. This research will be used to develop and implement a tool that empowers families to use school quality information as a catalyst for actions that have a positive impact on their children’s education. At the conclusion of this project, Parent Revolution will publish a report to widely share the results of the research, the tool, and the results of implementation.