Communications Toolkits

- Making Digital Communications Accessible, an Edutopia post by LFA Deputy Director Anne O'Brien, offers tips for making the information schools share with students’ families more accessible for people of all abilities. 

- To update and build on the 2004-05 communications work described below, in 2012 LFA commissioned a scan of the public opinion research on public education over the past two years. From this scan, we developed:

• Framing Education Conversations - tips to help you talk about public education in a way that resonates with the general public
• Learning First Alliance Message Map - a document intended to guide communications with a general audience. (As LFA messaging on the value of public education grows and expands, audience-specific maps will be developed.) 

- LFA's Communications Toolkit aims to help education leaders communicate more effectively about public education. Based on focus groups and polling LFA commissioned in 2004 and 2005, the toolkit offers original research findings on public opinion, a guide to promoting public schools, and language for op-eds and speeches. It includes:

• Values, Vision and Performance: Americans' Hopes for Their Public Schools, a Power Point presentation on the results of LFA's original research on public opinion of public schools.

• Practical Guide to Promoting America's Public Schools, which is designed to help educators and others interested in education promote public education in their communities

• Sample Language for Written Materials, such as columns, articles and letters

• Sample Language for Speeches

• Language for Back-to-School Communications. Use all or part of LFA's back-to-school speech for your back-to-school presentations, columns or other communications. This language outlines a vision for 21st century public schools which is already taking shape in schools across the country. It reaffirms the extraordinary mission of our public schools and encourages strong partnerships among public schools, citizens and communities.

- With the release of international assessments often comes media coverage focused on the idea that schools in the United States are struggling and that the nation is losing its competitive edge. In December 2013, in conjunction with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) release of the latest results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), LFA created an International Assessment page with information on what we can learn from PISA and resources to help communicate those lessons to others.