Five states have approved adding 300 hours to school days in an effort to close achievement gaps and re-imagine the school day. Join us to discuss the pros and cons of kids spending more time at school!

The background, history and premise of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is important, but for our families, we need to break down exactly what these new standards look like for each grade level and how parents can support them in the home. The National PTA has recently published a Parents Guide to Student Success in PDF format in multiple languages.

In June, we spent an hour on #PTchat talking about whether Awards Assemblies were best for all kids. We agreed it was good to recognize students for all they do, but one takeaway highlighted how difficult it is for some students to be a part of the audience when year after year, their names are NOT the ones called, even if they made great strides during the school year.

Join us on this week's #PTchat as we take a look at the research on creating and building a home-school partnership, while sharing examples what this looks like in today's schools.

Maxine Shaw, Head of Hazelwood School in Surrey, England said in an article for the autumn issue of Attain Magazine, “The very best schools will set children on a journey.” She continues on to say, “…each child sees themselves as an octopus, in a string bag, on a zip wire. As the child travels along the zip wire they will be able to swing away from the central line, grabbing every opportunity that is offered to them.”

This Wednesday night at 9PM EDT/6PM PST, we'll be talking politics and the future of U.S. Education on #PTchat (Parent-Teacher Chat). Nikhil Goyal (@nikhilgoya_l), a 17 year-old student and author of One Size Does Not Fit All: A Student's Assessment of School will answer questions and offer ideas during our chat according to his lens as a student attending today's schools.

During this week's #PTChat on Twitter, we'll discuss ideas on how to provide parents with training both in traditional and un-conference-like offerings. We'll discuss the role of teachers, parents, leaders, and students -- and potentially plan an actual "ParentCamp." Join us!

As social media continues to expand its global reach at an astronomical pace (460,000 new registrations per day on Twitter), parents are taking note. 80% of those 460K sign-ups are between the ages of 18-35 - the age of many of our elementary school parents here in 2012.