On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I explore the culture of condescension among defenders of traditional public education — and even some school reformers — against parents, and their unwillingness to embrace families as king — and consumers — in education. Despite all the statements about the importance of parental engagement in education, what actually happens in classrooms, among policymakers and in think tanks is runs counter to embracing parent power and the true role of parents as kings — and lead decision-makers — in education. This culture against parent power must end.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, Zune, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. And the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

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On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast — a continuation of last week’s podcast on Parent Power — I provide more questions for parents and other caregivers to ask in order to  improve education for their kids. Families must be treated as the kings — and lead decision-makers in education — that they should be, even when school officials and teachers attempt to treat them as afterthoughts. Asking the right questions will give caring adults the ability to improve education for their child and for all children — and further sustain school reform.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, Zune, MP3 player or smartphone.  Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also, add the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

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As a single mother of two sons attending Washington, D.C.’s public schools in the 1990s, Virginia Walden Ford should have been at a complete loss at how to improve education for her kids. Instead of remaining helpless, Walden launched the school reform movement in the District — whose school system was once considered the Superfund Site of education — by taking to the streets, lobbying Congress and fighting for charter schools and voucher programs. The results of her work can still be seen today, as D.C. has become one of the foremost centers for charter schools, and in the efforts by Michelle Rhee to overhaul D.C. Public Schools. Ford showed how even one parent can build a movement to improve education, both for their child and for all children.

Watch this excerpt from a Bluegrass Institute presentation, listen to this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast (and an earlier podcast on building parent power), and consider what you would do for your own child. Then take action for all children.

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To complement this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast — and the upcoming podcast on Sunday on more questions parents can ask to improve education for their kids — here is a rebroadcast of a podcast on steps school reformers must take to in education decisionmaking. The expansion of charter schools and other forms of school choice, along with initiatives borne out of the No Child Left Behind Act and Race to the Top such as Parent Trigger, offer great opportunities to truly put children and families at the center of education (and improve the lives of even the poorest children). But only if an infrastructure is built to help parents make the best decisions.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, MP3 player or smartphone. Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also, add the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

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On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast,  I advise parents and other caregivers on how to improve education for their children through a few simple questions. Even as school reform has provided new tools for parents, they still need ways to use them for the advantage of their children. Asking the right questions will give caring adults the ability to improve education for their child and for all children — and further sustain school reform.

You can listen to the Podcast at RiShawn Biddle’s radio page or download directly to your iPod, Zune, MP3 player or smartphone.  Also, subscribe to the podcast series. It is also available on iTunes, Blubrry, Podcast Alley, the Education Podcast Network,  Zune Marketplace and PodBean. Also, add the podcast on Viigo, if you have a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android phone.

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President Barack Obama may not be a fan of school voucher programs — and has allowed D.C.’s Opportunity Scholarship Program to go out of business. But his Race to the Top school reform competition has fostered new discussion about — and efforts to — launch and expand these forms of school choice for the poorest children. One state in particular is New Jersey, where Gov. Chris Christie and a coalition of urban leaders, centrist and idiosyncratic liberal Democrats, and conservatives are battling the National Education Association’s state affiliate to develop a statewide voucher plan. Among the supporters is Rev. Reginald Jackson, the pastor at St. Matthew A.M.E. Church, who has also been front-and-center on tenure reform and other school reform issues.

Watch Jackson’s impassioned explanation about why the poorest children and their families — especially those in our urban communities — need tools for improving their educational and economic destinies. If you oppose vouchers, think about why you do — and then consider how can you deny the poorest of our children the choices for brighter futures availed even to their middle class schoolmates.

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