ABOUT US
Since 1997, a key part of the Prichard
Committee for Academic Excellence’s advocacy strategy
in Kentucky has been the Commonwealth
Institute for Parent Leadership (CIPL), an initiative that
trains and supports parent activists to help improve achievement
in their schools and to be advocates for statewide reform.
This program has trained and supported over 1,200 parents and is
widely recognized as a model of parent engagement. It has been
supported financially by Kentucky individuals and corporations
and, primarily, by national foundations (Ford, Kellogg, BellSouth,
Casey, Pew, Edna McConnell Clark, Wallace-Readers Digest). Please
see the 2002-2003 Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership
Biennial Report pdf.
In response to numerous requests for advice and assistance from
outside of Kentucky, and to generate income to sustain the Prichard
Committee and the Commonwealth Institute, we created the Center
for Parent Leadership (CPL). Three of the Prichard Committee’s
long-time foundation supporters — Ford, Casey and Pew —
urged us to create the capacity to generate revenue and specifically
provided venture funding for three years of CPL. Our first step
was to employ Community Wealth Ventures, a Washington-based subsidiary
of Share our Strength, to conduct a feasibility study and a business
plan. This done, CPL began operations in 2002.
The Center for Parent Leadership is now marketing its consulting
services across the country. The Center for Parent Leadership
(CPL) is a division within the non-profit Prichard Committee.
CPL is managed and its consulting services are provided by Prichard
Committee staff.
CPL offers a variety of services and products to clients. Overall
the objective is to help others benefit from what we have learned
from all these years of organizing support for improved schools.
Our services fall roughly in three categories:
· large-scale consulting
· workshops and seminars
· publications
OUR
AGENDA
The nation-wide focus on student achievement across the country
has changed everything — including advocacy. The advent
of standards-based education reform in all states and the new
federal law (No Child Left Behind) creates a compelling need for
the more powerful engagement of parents as advocates for all children
in their schools and the schools in their communities. Just as
expectations for teachers and students have been raised by higher
academic standards, accountability and testing, expectations for
parents have been raised as well.
At the school level, parent understanding of school achievement
data is needed so parents can push and/or assist educators to
make improvements based on that data. At the public and community
level, parent knowledge of test scores and data is required for
informed public dialogue and decision making.
We want to redefine parent engagement in the standards-based context.
The idea is to go beyond parents’ traditional roles (bake
sales and homework help) to focus on parents’ potential
for helping improve student achievement.
We want to put the importance of parent leadership on the national
and local agendas, in the same way, for instance, that issues
such as principal leadership and teaching quality are on that
agenda. This is especially timely in light of No Child Left Behind.
Without a broader base of knowledgeable and demanding parents
and advocates, the great promise of standards-based reform is
unlikely to be realized.
Contact
Information
Telephone
859-233-9849 ext. 226
FAX
859-233-0760
Postal address
167 West Main Street, Suite 310
Lexington, KY 40507
Electronic mail
General Information:
mtoney@prichardcommittee.org
