Support for Parents, Educators, and the Community
For parents and others interested in pursuing improved student and/or school performance, the links below should serve as a starting point.
An Overview of Resources from ECF
The Education Consumers Foundation website offers a great deal of information for parents and others interested in effective K-12 education. Download this brochure for an overview of what’s available, presented in a format that’s easily shared with others in your child’s school.
Books by Elaine McEwan
Former educator and administrator Elaine McEwan has written several books on school leadership and improvement.
These include:
- Ten Traits of Highly Successful Schools: How You Can Know If Your School Is a Good One
- How to Raise a Reader
- Making Sense of Research: What’s Good, What’s Not, and How to Tell the Difference
Online Instruction
Two resources to consider:
Direct Instruction
Despite its proven effectiveness, Direct Instruction has not been universally accepted in education. Those familiar with the controversy, but unfamiliar with the method itself, may be surprised by effective it is, and how well-liked it is by parents and students.
- You can go here for videos on DI and here for a chart showing DI’s performance against other approaches in Project Follow Through, the largest federal education research project in history.
- Go here for a series of online videos made available by the Fairfield-Suisun (CA) Unified School District.
- Teaching Needy Kids in Our Backward System – a new book by Siegfried Engelmann, father of Direct Instruction, chronicling the development of Direct Instruction from 1964 through 2006.