Jobs/Roles in the ECE Community: National/Federal Level

The first two organizations that I chose to write about have a focus on parent involvement in education. I know I have stated many times before in blogs and discussions that I am a huge advocate for parent involvement in their children’s educational process and journey and they should be fully knowledgeable about their child’s development and how to help guide them toward reaching their full potential.

National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE)

NCPIE’s (2015) mission is “to advocate the involvement of parents and families in their children's education, and to foster relationships between home, school, and community to enhance the education of all our nation's young people”. Although I could not find any employment opportunities on their website after conducting a thorough search, I see where one of their partners are Parent Information Resource Centers (PIRCs), located in many states throughout the U.S. If not able to work for NCPIE directly, I would love to be involved in a PIRC in my area in order to “work closely with parents, educators and community organizations to strengthen partnerships so that children can reach high academic standards” (NCPIE, 2015).

National Parent Teacher Association (NPTA)

The National PTA’s (2015) overall goal is to “to make every child’s potential a reality by engaging and empowering families and communities to advocate for all children.” With being “a powerful voice for all children, a relevant resource for families and communities, and a strong advocate for public education”, today PTA is “a network of millions of families, students, teachers, administrators, and business and community leaders devoted to the educational success of children and the promotion of family engagement in schools” (PTA, 2015). An employment opportunity that is available at this time at PTA that would be an amazing career is an Executive Director, providing you have a Master’s Degree and 10 years of experience working with a nonprofit organization. With the Executive Director providing visionary leadership to the NPTA, monitoring day to day operations of an organization, maintaining a positive fiscal oversight, knowledge of fundraising, as well as staff recruitment and supervision would just be a few of the abilities needed to perform as an Executive Director.

The last organization that I found would actually be one that I would include in my community of practice. They advocate for social justice and equity and are a 100% volunteer driven organization.

National Association of Multicultural Education (NAME)

“The NAME was founded by a group of individuals that came together united by passion and vision for multicultural education to create an organization that would celebrate diversity, as well as challenge the existing social inequities” (NAME, 2015). NAME (2015) states three objectives:

• To provide opportunities for learning in order to advance multicultural education, equity and social justice.
• To proactively reframe public debate and impact current and emerging policies in ways that advance social, political, economic and educational equity through advocacy, position papers, policy statements and other strategies.

• To provide the preeminent digital clearinghouse of resources about educational equity and social justice.

With NAME being a volunteer organization, there are many chapters that are located throughout the U.S. Knowing this, I would love to become a member of the organization, be involved, and maybe even consider organizing a chapter in my local area in the future.

Resources

http://www.ncpie.org/

http://www.pta.org/index.cfm

http://nameorg.org/