Fox 13, a TV station in Tampa, Fla., did a nice piece this week about a unique partnership that shows how much and how fast education is changing. It’s between Khan Academy and Step Up For Students, the nonprofit that administers Florida’s tax credit scholarship program for low-income kids (and, full disclosure, co-hosts this blog). The story focused on Gateway Christian Academy, one of 10 private schools that accept scholarship students and volunteered to join the effort.

Like other partnership schools, Gateway Christian is holding “Khan Nights” to show parents how Khan Academy works, how the school is incorporating it into its curriculum and how it can make a difference for their children. As you’ll see from the clip, it’s using this technology, and reeling in a diverse group of moms and dads, all so it can maximize the academic outcomes for its kids.

As we wrote a few months back, the Khan Academy/Step Up venture is only one of a handful that Khan Academy has established with school districts nationwide, and the only one outside of California that involves a network of private schools. The way we see it, it’s a beautiful marriage between school choice and the latest learning tools, with a heavy dose of parental engagement thrown in. Thanks, Fox 13, for giving your viewers a peek at the future.

If schools want parents and caregivers to chaperone field trips and cook hot dogs at the fall carnival, then a parental involvement plan should be their course of action. However, if schools want those same parents and caregivers to actively participate in decisions regarding their child’s success in school, then their best bet is a parental engagement plan.

Involvement vs. engagement. I have often been asked, “What’s the difference? Aren’t these two terms interchangeable?”  To draw a comparison that resonates with many of my colleagues, I point to the time in our lives where a personal relationship moved from “being involved with a significant other” to becoming engaged. Being involved in a relationship usually meant we did things together, but steered away from “counting on each other” or the promise to share the ups and downs of life. With engagement came the commitment to making the relationship a success, with listening to each other critical and compromise inevitable.

So it is with parents in our schools. Schools with parent involvement plans direct their parents; they tell them what to do. Schools engaging their parents, on the other hand, establish two-way communication and believe compromise is essential.

At Step Up For Students, we’re focusing on engagement.

Over the last year, we’ve worked with 10 partner private schools, providing tools and strategies to help them better understand their responsibility for creating a culture that establishes and sustains parent-school partnerships. We know engaging families in all aspects of their children’s education yields positive results. So the staffs at these schools are actively engaged in learning with and from each other, sharing and reflecting as they identify and establish processes, conditions and structures needed to meet their goals.

Now in the second year of our work, we are supporting teachers and administrators as they learn how to engage in intentional study of their relationships. Educators identify significant elements of the partnership with parents, frame questions they want to study, consult relevant research, implement changes, collect and analyze both quantitate and qualitative data – and then codify their study to share with other educators. We’ve also expanded the effort this year and now have 28 schools on board.

The difference between “involvement” and “engagement” isn’t hair splitting. Quite simply, involvement is more of a “doing to” the parent while engagement is a “doing with.” Engagement establishes the need to listen first, asking thoughtful questions to better understand the assets and strengths of the family. (more…)

Texas: School choice critics claim vouchers threaten high school football because they will allegedly drain money from public schools (The Texas Tribune). More from KHOU.com. Response from redefinED.

Florida: State education leaders seek to double enrollment in charter schools over the next six years, from about 180,000 now to 360,000 (Orlando Sentinel). More from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Florida private schools that accept tax credit scholarships are part of a project to boost parental engagement (redefinED).

Alabama: Supporters say there is little chance a charter school bill will be back in the Legislature next year (Anniston Star).

Michigan: A newspaper poll finds only 1 in 5 Detroit residents think the school district offers the best learning options for their kids (Detroit News).

Louisiana: State Superintendent John White proposes new rules for private and parochial schools that want voucher dollars (Baton Rouge Advocate). He  touts the new voucher program in a visit to New Orleans (wwltv.com). Arguments in the constitutional challenge against the program are postponed until next month (Associated Press). One district sees growth in its virtual school option (Baton Rouge Advocate.) (more…)