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1.0 Education is…
Overview of Chapter 1 1.1 California Context
Are California’s Schools Really Behind? 1.2 International Context
Are U.S. Schools Behind the World? 1.3 Economic Context
Schools for Knowledge Work 1.4 Bad Apples
The High Social Costs of Educational Failure 1.5 Wishful thinking
Grade inflation and cognitive biases
1.6 Progress
Are Schools Improving? 1.7 History of Education
How have Schools Changed Over Time? 1.8 Purpose
What is Education For, Really?
2.0 Students...
Overview of Chapter 2 2.1 Diversity
The Changing Face of America's Students 2.2 Poverty and Race
How Do Students' Backgrounds Affect Their School Performance? 2.3 Health and Learning
What Can Schools Do? 2.4 Parents
A Child's First Teacher 2.5 How Does Education Change
Inputs and Outcomes
2.6 Motivation
What Motivates Students? 2.7 Special Needs
Why Not Teach All Kids Alike? 2.8 Child Protection
Intervention and foster care 2.9 Undocumented
Undocumented Students 2.10 Student Voice
What is the Role of the Student in Education Leadership?
3.0 Teachers
Overview of Chapter 3 3.1 Recruitment
Who Teaches, and Why? 3.2 Preparation and Certification
How To Make a Teacher 3.3 Retention
How to Retain a Teacher 3.4 Teacher Placement
Who Teaches Where? 3.5 Teacher Development
How Do Teachers Improve?
3.6 Teacher Collaboration
How do educators work together? 3.7 Benefits
The Benefits of Teaching 3.8 Teacher Pay
How much are teachers paid? 3.9 Teacher Evaluation
How Do Teachers Know If They Are Succeeding? 3.10 Tenure and Seniority
Teacher Tenure - Good? Evil? 3.11 Pensions
How Good is a Teacher's Pension?
4.0 Spending Time...
Overview of Chapter 4 4.1 Preschool
Yes, Early Childhood Education Matters 4.2 Class Size
How Big Should Classes Be? 4.3 School Hours
Is There Enough Time To Learn? 4.4 Time Management
Spending School Time Well 4.5 Extra Time and Tutoring
When Kids Need More Time and Attention
4.6 Summer
Time to Learn, or Time to Forget? 4.7 After School
What Should Happen After School? 4.8 Attendance
Don't Miss School!
5.0 Places For Learning
Overview of Chapter 5 5.1 Where Do You Live?
Zip Codes and School Quality 5.2 School Choice
Should You Have a Choice of Schools? 5.3 Selectivity
How Schools Sort Students 5.4 At Risk
When Regular School Doesn't Cut It 5.5 Charter Schools
Public schools, different rules
5.6 Private Schools
Tuition, Vouchers, and Religion 5.7 Community Schools
Services beyond classwork 5.8 Principals and Superintendents
The Pivotal Role of an Educational Leader 5.9 School Facilities
What Should a School Look Like? 5.10 School Climate
What Makes a School Good? 5.11 Small Schools
Oops, We Shrunk the Schools!
5.12 Home Schools
How Do They Work? 5.13 Discipline and Safety
Who Rules the School?
6.0 The Right Stuff
Overview of Chapter 6 6.1 Grade-level Expectations
How Do Common Core Standards Work? 6.2 Academic Rigor
Is School Challenging Enough? 6.3 Literacy
Ensuring All Kids Learn to Read, Write and Speak English 6.4 STEM
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math 6.5 Tests
Why Tests Matter and How They Work
6.6 Technology in Education
Tools for teaching and learning 6.7 Student Engagement
Making School Interesting 6.8 Arts Education
Creating in School 6.9 P.E. and Athletics
How does sweat and movement help learning? 6.10 Let’s Go!
What Makes a Field Trip Great? 6.11 Career Technical Education
Education for career opportunities
6.12 Service Learning
Learning to Help Others 6.13 Social-Emotional Learning
Education for Mental Health 6.14 Character
Can Values and Habits be Taught? 6.15 Civics, history and geography
How do kids learn about their country and the world? 6.16 World Language Learning
The Cure for Ugly Americans 6.17 Financial Literacy
Learning to Earn
7.0 And a System…
Overview of Chapter 7 7.1 The State
The Buck Stops Here 7.2 The Federal Government
Small money, big influence 7.3 School Districts
In Charge of Most Local Schools 7.4 Thinking Regionally about Education
County Offices, and Crossing Boundaries 7.5 Teachers' Unions
Don't Underestimate Them
7.6 Initiatives and Education
California's Initiative Process and How It Affects Schools 7.7 Who influences education?
Politics, philanthropy and policy 7.8 Accountability in Education
Who monitors the quality of schools? 7.9 When Schools Fail
Interventions and Consequences 7.10 The LCAP
Annual plans for school districts
8.0 …with Resources…
Overview of Chapter 8 8.1 Spending
Does California Spend Enough on Education? 8.2 Education Spending
What can education dollars buy? 8.3 Who Pays for Schools?
Where California's Public School Funds Come From 8.4 Prop 13 and Prop 98
Initiatives that shaped California's education system 8.5 LCFF
The formula that controls most school funding
8.6 Categorical funds
Special education and other exceptions 8.7 School Funding
How Money Reaches the Classroom 8.8 Effectiveness
Is Education Money Well Spent? 8.9 More Money for Education
What Are the Options? 8.10 Parcel Taxes
Only in California... 8.11 Volunteers
Hidden Treasure Trove for Schools
9.0 Success
Overview of Chapter 9 9.1 Measures of Success
For Kids and For Schools 9.2 Student Success
How Well is My Kid Doing? 9.3 Tests
Standardized Measures of Student Learning 9.4 Student Readiness
College and Career 9.5 Education Data
Keeping Track of the School System
9.6 Achievement Gaps
The System's Biggest Challenge 9.7 The Dashboard
Measuring California School Performance 9.8 After High School
What California’s System Provides 9.9 Paying for College
High hopes and college loans
10.0 So Now What?
Overview of Chapter 10 10.1 Blow It Up?
Big Ideas For Education Change 10.2 Go Big
What Money Might Do 10.3 Educational Efficiency
How can schools systems handle budget cuts? 10.4 Change
What Causes Change in Education? 10.5 Learn More
Organizations and Resources

Ed100 Chapter of the Month: Planning for PTA Meetings

by Jeff Camp | September 30, 2019 | 10 Comments
featured image

A Resource for Transformative Monthly Meetings for PTA boards and Student Councils

This year, reserve 15 minutes of each month's meeting for learning with Ed100. Here's the plan.

The mission of Ed100.org is to help you understand the education system so that you will have great ideas and the credibility to be heard. You can read Ed100 on your own, of course, but it's even more helpful as a basis for conversation. With feedback from PTA leaders, the Ed100 team has developed the Chapter of the Month Program, a way to support learning within PTA boards. (Or other groups of learning leaders.)

We know you meet regularly throughout the year. We want to help you plan ahead for those board meetings to help your board become well informed and up-to-date about California's education system. It can be fun. We even made a game out of it, which you can use.

But the way to really make it happen is with consistency. Try the Ed100 Chapter of the Month Program, an online kit of ten Ed100 learning modules based on the ten chapters of Ed100.org. These modules are short: about 15 minutes each, a size that can fit in your monthly PTA board meeting. Used in this way, the modules will help your board learn about California's changing education system. Knowledge builds confidence for discussion, and discussion builds engagement.

(Ahem: Hey, student leaders — we suspect you could outpace the parents. Would you agree?)

Each Ed100 CHAMP module includes:

Pre-reading Each month, the pre-reading for your meeting is chapter of Ed100.org. The lessons within each chapter take about five minutes each to complete, including the quiz that earns you a chance to win $1,000 for your PTA.
A Short Video A short video summarizes the content of each chapter. You can use this video to bring your whole leadership team onto the "same page" — even if they haven't done the reading and earned their tickets.
Discussion Guide A discussion guide helps you develop a conversation for each chapter. Great meetings lead to action: each discussion guide includes prompts to help you clarify steps to take next.

As usual from Ed100.org, all of this is free and PTA-safe. Our mission is to help you develop a well-informed, engaged school community that develops future leaders. That's what we do.

How to Make It Happen

Here's some sample wording to explain this plan to your PTA board:

Ed100.org is a free website that explains the California education system. It's being used in about 1,500 PTAs in California. It's an online, self-paced course. Ahead of our meeting each month, we'll read a chapter of Ed100.org. Each lesson takes about 5 minutes to read, and about half of participants take the lessons on their phone. At the end of each lesson there's a one-question quiz. By answering it, each of us will earn a ticket in the next Ed100 drawing. We could win up to $1,000 for our PTA. By end of the school year, we should all become Ed100 graduates.

At our board meetings we'll set aside 15 minutes to discuss key insights from the chapter of the month. We can decide together which lessons we want to bring to our members' attention.

Recommended Schedule

If your board uses the schedule recommended below, by the end of the school year you will all become Ed100 graduates. You will also be on pace to benefit from discussions with other people taking the course at the same time. Look for their thoughts in the comment section of each lesson and on the Ed100 Facebook Page.

(Want to customize the schedule? No problem. It is TOTALLY realistic to alter or compress the schedule. Here's a version you can clone, modify, share and print: Ed100 Rollout Schedule.)

 

Month

Read It on Ed100

Discuss It

Watch Video

1

Aug -
Sep

Read Chapter 1:
Education Is...

Discussion Guide 1
Announcement 1

2

Sep -
Oct

Read Chapter 2:
Students

Discussion Guide 2
Announcement 2

3

Oct -
Nov

Read Chapter 3:
Teachers

Discussion Guide 3
Announcement 3

4

Nov -
Dec

Read Chapter 4:
Time

Discussion Guide 4
Announcement 4

5

Dec -
Jan

Read Chapter 5:
Places for Learning

Discussion Guide 5
Announcement 5

6

Jan -
Feb

Read Chapter 6:
The Right Stuff

Discussion Guide 6
Announcement 6

7

Feb -
Mar

Read Chapter 7:
The System

Discussion Guide 7
Announcement 7

8

Mar -
Apr

Read Chapter 8:
Resources

Discussion Guide 8
Announcement 8

9

Apr -
May

Read Chapter 9:
Success

Discussion Guide 9
Announcement 9

10

May -
Jun

Read Chapter 10:
So Now What?

Discussion Guide 10
Announcement 10

To support these conversations and set the pace for them:

  • The Ed100 team promotes the "Ed100 chapter of the month" through emails to our readers and through the Ed100 Facebook page.
  • It's our hope that the Ed100 chapter of the month will help anchor a statewide conversation among PTA leaders using Facebook. It's an easy, rewarding way for Ed100.org participants to complete the course, earning their Ed100 Graduate certificate.
  • As an added benefit to reading lessons and taking the quizzes, your board members will earn lots of tickets in the drawing. We hold two drawings each school year, so you can always have something to organize around.

We're eager for your feedback. Add your comment below, or drop me an email, or leave a comment on our Ed100 Facebook Page. What do you need from us to be successful?

Questions & Comments

To comment or reply, please sign in .

user avatar
Lm August 28, 2019 at 3:08 pm
I love this idea! We have our first general meeting next week and it’s something we could easily start implementing. I’m thinking that having an Ed100 chairperson would really drive this home since most executive board members are already carrying a big volunteer load. And the benefits are three fold - educating parents about the system, while getting them involved in the PTSA all while earning opportunities for the drawing! Thanks for sharing and giving parents a resource on all things related to the Californias Educational System.
user avatar
Alisa Sabshin-Blek August 13, 2019 at 10:30 pm
Can’t wait to try it!
user avatar
erin phelps June 9, 2019 at 4:55 pm
I love the resource. I would love to play the video at our morning coffee however the majority of people there speak Spanish. Are the videos also in Spanish?
user avatar
Jeff Camp June 9, 2019 at 7:33 pm
Thanks, Erin -- the videos are in English with Spanish subtitles. (Hit the CC button at the bottom of the YouTube screen. You can also get a full transcript by clicking the ... icon). It's not a machine translation. By the way, I notice that you are almost an Ed100 graduate. Keep it up!
user avatar
erin phelps July 31, 2019 at 9:48 pm
Hi Jeff, thank you for the encouragement! Completing ED 100 has already proven to be beneficial! I really want to share this knowledge with our parents. One thing I learned through ED 100 is that the majority of growth in our school system are Hispanic and Spanish speakers. Having these videos in Spanish would be a great way for those parents to feel welcome and valued. Please consider do these videos in both languages.
user avatar
Katie Runella1 May 25, 2019 at 7:15 am
Great resource to have and so helpful the way it’s laid out!
user avatar
Brenda Etterbeek May 10, 2019 at 6:44 pm
Love this resource! Our school is loving it and we are having great conversations!
user avatar
Kari August 31, 2018 at 12:22 pm
This would be a great idea for the Principal coffee chats, too! Can't wait to start!
user avatar
Caryn September 5, 2018 at 11:25 am
Kari, that's a terrific idea. Anyone can become an Ed100 CHAMP by following our new "Chapter of the Month" Program. Whether you follow it individually or as a school team, upon graduation you are armed with valuable information that prepares you to make a difference at your school. We look forward to hearing about your progress.
user avatar
pscripter August 31, 2018 at 12:04 pm
Ed100 is such a wonderful resource - and it's great that this chapter of the month plan really makes including lessons in PTA meetings simple and effective. I also really like that the information is available not only in written format but also videos - lots of access! Looking forward to including in our meetings this year.
user avatar
Caryn September 5, 2018 at 11:13 am
Thanks for your comment, pscripter! Our team works hard to keep content current and accessible. The videos can be a nice way to summarize Ed100 lessons. Thanks for including us in your meetings this year.
user avatar
Vanessa July 27, 2018 at 12:07 pm
This looks like a great opportunity for our school to increase advocacy. This is well laid out and easy to understand. I am excited to make goals with my new PTA board and learn together.
user avatar
Caryn July 27, 2018 at 1:24 pm
Wonderful! We are glad you find our content valuable. This is a great time of year to make plans with your board to become Ed100 graduates together. I look forward to hearing more about your progress!
user avatar
Erica July 19, 2018 at 7:01 pm
In our growing school, we are looking forward to following this particular learning module to implement at meetings. By having a common framework, we are are hoping that this can help provide a foundation for graduates and those currently pursuing the modules to come together to have meaningful conversations about how we can build our community. After all, an informed parent community is priceless and can help those of us from a variety of backgrounds achieve common goals harmoniously.
user avatar
Caryn July 27, 2018 at 1:27 pm
I agree, an informed parent community IS priceless. And isn't that what we all want--engaged and informed school communities? We are so happy to hear you will be using Ed100 to help you achieve your PTA's vision for your school. Let us know how it goes.
user avatar
Denise J July 11, 2018 at 12:08 pm
This is a great way to build attendance at PTA meetings. PTA meetings are better attended when people have a reason to show up. Usually, we provide a guest speaker or a special program by the students. Now, we can use the Ed100 chapter-of-the-month as a drawing card to get people to come. Also, though, we need to make sure that people know to show up even if they have not done the lesson prep. The great part about this method is that you benefit from the discussion, even if you have not done the reading. Small cheat... after the discussion, you can take the quiz and get your ticket for the drawing!
user avatar
Caryn July 27, 2018 at 1:31 pm
Denise, you really nailed it--PTA meetings are better when people have a reason to show up and the "Chapter of the Month" program is a great reason! By adding lessons or videos to your agenda, you're also communicating your commitment to your PTA members to be the most informed parent leaders that you can be. Keep up the great work! I look forward to hearing about your successes.

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