Hello Everyone,

On December 21, I sent an E-mail to all of you describing concerns about the
DRAFT policy statement of the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and
Human Services for "family engagement from the early years to the early
grades." The government's web site requested that comments be sent to them at
the following E-mail address (ECD@acf.hhs.gov) on their web site
(http://www2.ed.gov/about/inits/ed/earlylearning/families.html#family-engagementdraft-statement). The problem was that messages sent to that address were
undeliverable. However, they changed the deadline to January 4 (this Monday). I
sent an E-mail to that address on January 2 and it did NOT bounce back, so I
assume that now it's working. This is what their message says on the site:

Comments are requested on the draft statement to inform the final document
through JANUARY 4, 2016 by emailing your comments to: ECD@acf.hhs.gov.
Note revised deadline.

INFORMATION ON THE PROPOSAL

The US Department of Education and Health and Human Services have
formulated extremely troubling and intrusive plans for the "implementation of
effective family engagement practices from the early years to the early grades." It
appears that school districts could be functioning as social service agencies and
teachers as social workers. The government's DRAFT proposal provided by the
USDOE and HHS is attached. It can also be viewed at:

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/ecd/draft_hhs_ed_family_engagement.
pdf
What can you do? Read the disturbing information below, decide for yourself what
you think, and send an E-mail to the government at the
address ECD@acf.hhs.gov to voice your concerns on their plans. The deadline for

comments is January 4, 2016. This is too important to put aside. Please E-mail
them, even if you write only a few words.
The purpose of the federal government's plans purportedly are to "systematically
engage families in their children's development, learning and wellness, across early
childhood and elementary education settings." Although these proposals
might appear to be well-meaning, the "devil is in the details." After reading this
DRAFT, I found the federal overreach to be extremely disturbing and unacceptable.
Many of these federal plans for implementation -- specifically "parenting
intervention" (their words!) -- have the potential of leading us down the path of
countries like Russia, North Korea, and China, where the State controls and
indoctrinates children at a young age and supplants parental values with those of
the State.

An opinion article summarizing the multiple concerns of opponents of this plan can
be accessed at:
http://dissidentprof.com/latest-dispatches/204-contraries-dec-18-2015.html.

There are multiple concerns that I personally have about these unacceptable
proposals but I shall mention only three. You can read the DRAFT yourself to draw
your own conclusions.

(page 13 of DRAFT): "Home Visits: To support ongoing relationship building

with families, programs and schools should conduct periodic home visits
so that teachers and families can get to know each other and
communicate about childrens goals, strengths, challenges, and
progress. If home visits are not possible for all families, schools or programs
should require that teachers or providers and families communicate at the
beginning of the year to ensure that the relationship is started in a positive
way."

What will teachers be instructed to do in these home visits? Will they

intervene by telling parents how to raise their own children? The phrase
"parenting intervention," as noted on page 14 is particularly disturbing. Do
we really want our teachers spending their time visiting homes as pseudo
social workers rather than educating them in the classrooms which they have
been trained to do?

Note that there is a huge data collection process involved in the

government's plans.
(page 14 of DRAFT): "Track family engagement data, including family
reported data. Local schools and programs should track progress on family
engagement goals, as detailed in family engagement plans. The specific data
collected will be based on programs goals, but may include assessments of
the programs family friendly environment or teacher and provider- family
relationships using valid and reliable tools. In collecting data, it is important to
incorporate input from various reporters, including teachers/providers,
Directors and principals, family support and family engagement specialists,
and families..."

To repeat... teachers are not social workers; it is totally inappropriate to send

them into children's homes and expect them to acquire, tabulate, and possibly
interpret data on families. What might have started out to be data collection
for enhancing student learning could very likely result in severe and intrusive
privacy violations. Although a child's well-being certainly affects his/her
learning, the primary function of a teacher should be academics.

An enormous responsibility of implementing the federal government's

proposals for engaging families would rest on school districts and teachers.
School districts are already overwhelmed with the innumerable federal and
state unfunded mandates that are currently required of them. The additional
mandates imposed by this proposal could create insurmountable budgetary
problems for many of them.

I urge you to read the government's DRAFT proposal and relay your opinions to
them at ECD@acf.hhs.gov by January 4. Please ACT, NOW!!!