[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 35 (Monday, March 2, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Page S1219]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. REED (for himself, Mr. Coons, and Mr. Whitehouse):
  S. 622. A bill to strengthen families' engagement in the education of 
their children; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, today I introduce the Family Engagement in 
Education Act with my colleagues Senator Coons and Senator Whitehouse. 
I thank Representatives Thompson and DeSaulnier for introducing the 
House companion of this bipartisan bill.
  Research demonstrates that family engagement in a child's education 
increases student achievement, improves attendance, and reduces dropout 
rates. A study by Anne Seitsinger and Steven Brand at the University of 
Rhode Island's Center for School Improvement and Educational Policy 
found that students whose parents support their education through 
learning activities at home and discuss the importance of education 
perform better in school. The importance of family engagement begins 
even before a child enters school. For example, Scholastic's recent 
Kids and Family Reading Report found that among children ages 6-11, 60 
percent of frequent readers, those who read 5-7 days per week for fun, 
were read to aloud by a parent 5-7 times per week before they entered 
kindergarten.
  Too often, however, family engagement is not built into our school 
improvement efforts in a systematic way. The Family Engagement in 
Education Act will promote and strengthen meaningful family engagement 
policies and programs at the national, State, and local levels to 
ensure that all students are on track to be career and college-ready.
  Our legislation will empower parents by increasing school district 
resources dedicated to family engagement activities from one percent to 
2 percent of the district's Title I allocation. It will also improve 
the quality of family engagement practices at the school level by 
requiring school districts to develop and implement standards-based 
policies and practices for family-school partnerships. It will build 
State and local capacity for effective family engagement in education 
by setting aside at least 0.3 percent of the State Title I allocation 
for statewide family engagement in education activities, such as 
establishing statewide family engagement centers to continue and 
enhance the work that had been supported through the Parent Information 
Resource Centers. For States with Title I-A allocations above $60 
million, grants will be provided to at least one local family 
engagement in education center to provide innovative programming and 
services, such as leadership training and family literacy, to local 
families and to remove barriers to family engagement, and to support 
activities in the highest need areas of the State. Finally, at the 
national level, our legislation will require the Secretary of Education 
to convene practitioners, researchers, and other experts in the field 
of family engagement in education to develop recommended metrics for 
measuring the quality and outcomes of family engagement in a child's 
education.
  This legislation builds on my successful efforts in the last 
reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, ESEA, 
the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, to incorporate provisions throughout 
the law to strengthen and boost parental involvement. Developed with 
the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, 
which includes organizations such as National PTA, United Way 
Worldwide, Harvard Family Research Project, and National Council of La 
Raza, and endorsed by hundreds of local, State, and national 
organizations, this legislation represents the broad consensus that we 
must do a better job of engaging families in all aspects of their 
children's education.
  I urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Family Engagement in Education 
Act, and to work for its inclusion in forthcoming legislation to 
reauthorize and renew the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

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