Education

Children & Families

February 26, 2003 2 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print

Guiding Parents

To help parents and community members better understand the “No Child Left Behind” Act of 2001, the Washington-based Public Education Network has published a guide to the federal law, which explains how it can be used to improve student achievement.

The 80-page handbook, supported by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation, in St. Davids, Pa., includes a glossary of education terms and abbreviations commonly used by educators and policymakers when they refer to the new law. And it advises parents and other citizens how to hold town meetings, disseminate information to the public on school performance, have productive parent-teacher conferences, and use other strategies to hold educators accountable for results.

“Using NCLB to Improve Student Achievement: An Action Guide for Community and Parent Leaders” is available for free by calling PEN at (202) 628-7460. It is also online at www.publiceducation.org/ pdf/NCLBBook.pdf. (Requires Adobe’s Acrobat Reader.)

PEN is a national organization of local education funds and individuals working to build support for public schools.

Helping Mothers:

A new study suggests that child-care subsidies can significantly improve a low-income mother’s chances of keeping a job.Helping Mothers: A new study suggests that child-care subsidies can significantly improve a low-income mother’s chances of keeping a job.

Researchers from Georgia State University, in Atlanta, and the University of Georgia, in Athens, found that poor working mothers in Georgia who received such subsidies were 25 percent more likely to be employed than similar women who were on waiting lists for the subsidies.

“With welfare rolls declining so drastically over the past five years, many policymakers have declared job retention as the next big challenge for welfare reform,” the authors write in the study, which appears in the current issue of the Early Childhood Research Quarterly, a journal sponsored by the Washington-based National Association for the Education of Young Children. “Our findings suggest that child-care subsidies may contribute to job retention for low-income families.”

Mothers using subsidies were also more likely than those on waiting lists to use licensed child-care centers, and those child-care arrangements were more stable, according to the study, which was led by Fred P. Brooks, a social work professor at Georgia State.

The researchers did not find significant differences, however, on measures of child well-being, such as school readiness, social and emotional development, and physical health.

—Linda Jacobson ljacobson@epe.org

Events

Jobs Virtual Career Fair for Teachers and K-12 Staff
Find teaching jobs and other jobs in K-12 education at the EdWeek Top School Jobs virtual career fair.
Ed-Tech Policy Webinar Artificial Intelligence in Practice: Building a Roadmap for AI Use in Schools
AI in education: game-changer or classroom chaos? Join our webinar & learn how to navigate this evolving tech responsibly.
Education Webinar Developing and Executing Impactful Research Campaigns to Fuel Your Ed Marketing Strategy 
Develop impactful research campaigns to fuel your marketing. Join the EdWeek Research Center for a webinar with actionable take-aways for companies who sell to K-12 districts.

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide — elementary, middle, high school and more.
View Jobs
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
View Jobs
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
View Jobs
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.
View Jobs

Read Next

Education Briefly Stated: January 17, 2024
Here's a look at some recent Education Week articles you may have missed.
9 min read
Education In Their Own Words The Stories That Stuck With Us, 2023 Edition
Our newsroom selected five stories as among the highlights of our work. Here's why.
4 min read
102523 IMSE Reading BS
Adria Malcolm for Education Week
Education Opinion The 10 Most-Read Opinions of 2023
Here are Education Week’s most-read Opinion blog posts and essays of 2023.
2 min read
Collage of lead images for various opinion stories.
F. Sheehan for Education Week / Getty
Education Letter to the Editor EdWeek's Most-Read Letters of 2023
Read the most-read Letters to the Editor of the past year.
1 min read
Illustration of a line of diverse hands holding up speech bubbles in front of a subtle textured newspaper background
iStock/Getty