Parents: Sharpen Your Pencils, Here are Some Education Tools Just for You!

Disclosure: Thank you to Results Louisiana for sponsoring this conversation.

A lot has changed in the classroom since we were there (I’m not going to say how long it’s been since I was there!). But one thing that hasn’t changed is a desire among parents for the highest quality public education. With the upcoming release of Louisiana’s PARCC student assessment results the week of November 9, we’re all looking for ways to better understand the results and what they mean for our children’s success moving forward.

For those who don’t know, the PARCC is the Partnership For Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. The PARCC test is designed to identify gaps in student knowledge and teacher instruction.

Louisiana is one of a number of states that adopted student standards that raise academic expectations for students. The goal is to better prepare them for success in college and a career and allow them to compete with any child in America. There has been a lot of coverage of the standards and last year’s test results in the news. There have also been a lot of misconceptions and myths about those results and what they mean about our students’ and teachers’ performance.

To help parents understand these PARCC test results and how to support their child’s learning at home, the Louisiana Department of Education created a set of free, online tools and resources. I encourage you to take a look at these resources now, prior to receiving your child’s results the week of November 9.

They are easy to find, simply visit the Department’s website at www.louisianabelieves.com and click on the Family Support Toolbox on the homepage.

The Toolbox features great info like the Parent Guide to PARCC Student Results, which walks through how to read and understand the new student reports, how to use the results to help your child improve in skill areas, and what questions to ask your student’s teacher about the results. You can also see a sample student report (for both English and math) that will show exactly what your child’s report will look like.

These reports will provide teachers, students and parents with a deeper level of information about student learning than we have received in the past. They also help identify the areas in each subject where our children are doing well and where they may need additional support. As a parent, knowing exactly where our children are academically is critical. Having sent my children to public school and taught them at home I know how vital it is that we, as parents, are deeply involved with our schools in educating our children.

The Department has also put out some great resources to help teachers prepare for the release of the test results too. The Classroom Support Toolbox contains a “Parent Conversation Guide” and a “Parent Night Presentation” to guide talks with parents about the results.

Best of all, all of these resources provide both parents and teachers with helpful ideas on how we can work hand-in-hand to understand the results and support students in both the classroom and at home.

If you have questions about these resources, you can email the Department at assessment@la.gov or join in the conversation on social media at Results Louisiana on Facebook and @ResultsLA on Twitter. They are definitely here to help… and they believe parent understanding is a crucial part of student success.

Again, you can find these resources here: http://www.louisianabelieves.com/resources/family-support-toolbox. I hope you find it as helpful as I did!