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PARTNERS

A newsletter for the Smaller Learning Community Project

of the

Kentucky Educational Developmental Corporation November 2006

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WHAT RESEARCH SAYS ABOUT PARENT INVOLVEMENT

In Relation to Academic Achievement

Where Children Spend Their Time

School age children spend 70% of their waking hours (including weekends and holidays) outside of school. (1)

When Parents Should Get Involved

The earlier in a child’s educational process parent involvement begins, the more powerful the effects. (2)

The benefits of parent involvement are not confined to early childhood or the elementary grades, but last through high school. (3)

Impact on Student Achievement

Decades of research show that when parents are involved students have: (4)

- Higher grades, test scores, and graduation rates

- Better school attendance

- Increased motivation, better self-esteem

- Lower rates of suspension

- Decreased use of drugs and alcohol

-Fewer instances of violent behavior

Eighty-six percent (86%) of the general public believes that support from parents is the most important way to improve the schools. (5)

Lack of parental involvement is the biggest

problem facing public schools.(6)

Family participation in education was twice as predictive of students’ academic success as family socioeconomic status. Some of the more intensive programs had effects that were 10 times greater than other factors. (7)

The more intensely parents are involved, the

more beneficial the achievement effects. (8)

The more parents participate in schooling, in a sustained way, at every level – in advocacy, decision-making and oversight roles, as fundraisers and boosters, as volunteers and paraprofessionals, and as home teachers -- the better for student achievement. (9)

The most effective forms of parent involvement are those, which engage parents in working directly with their children on learning activities at home. (10)

The availability of a quiet place at home to study with appropriate books, references materials, and other learning materials has a major influence on student achievement. (11)

Impact on Educators and Schools

Where teachers reported high levels of outreach to parents, reading scores grew at a rate 50 percent higher, and math tests scores 40 percent higher, than in schools where teachers reported low levels of outreach. Outreach to parents measured the extent to which teachers communicated with parents. (12)

Benefits of parent involvement for Schools (13)

- Improves teacher morale

- Higher ratings of teachers by parents

- More support from families

- Higher student achievement

- Better reputations in the community

The "amount of support from parents" was the number one factor people cited for why some schools are better than others. (14)

Teachers report that their lives are made easier if they get help from parents, and involved parents tend to have more positive views of teachers. (15)

Parent involvement leads to feelings of ownership resulting in increased support of schools and willingness to pay taxes to support schools. (16 )

Parent Expectations and Student Achievement

The most consistent predictors of children’s academic achievement and social adjustment are parent expectations of the child’s academic attainment and satisfaction with their child’s education at school. (17)

Parents of high-achieving students set higher standards for their children’s educational activities than parents of low-achieving students.(18)

Parents express a genuine and deep-seated desire to help their children succeed academically, regardless of differences in socioeconomic status, race, ethnicity, and cultural background. (19)

Lower-income parents often become passionately involved in their children’s school when that school adopts as part of its mission an inclusive policy that helps families feel valued, encouraged, and supported. (20)

Major Factors of Parent Involvement

Three major factors of parental involvement in the education of their children: (21)

1. Parents’ beliefs about what is important, necessary and permissible for them to do with and on behalf of their children;

2. The extent to which parents believe that they can have a positive influence on their children’s education; and

3. Parents’ perceptions that their children and school want them to be involved.

Type of Involvement

Although most parents do not know how to help their children with their education, with guidance and support, they may become increasingly involved in home learning activities and find themselves with opportunities to teach, to be models for and to guide their children. (22)

When schools encourage children to practice reading at home with parents, the children make significant gains in reading achievement compared to those who only practice at school. (23)

Parents, who read to their children, have books available, take trips, guide TV watching, and provide stimulating experiences contribute to student achievement. (24)

For elementary students, parent participation in reading and literacy programs, even for parents with lower literacy skills and varied language backgrounds, enhanced student achievement. For middle and high school students, parents who were aware of what their children were studying in school, communicated regularly with teachers, and reinforced schoolwork had children who made greater achievement gains. (25)

Families whose children are doing well in school exhibit the following characteristics: (26)

1. Establish a daily family routine. Examples: Providing time and a quiet place to study, assigning responsibility for household chores, being firm about bedtime and having dinner together.

2. Monitor out-of-school activities. Examples: Setting limits on TV watching, checking up on children when parents are not home, arranging for after-school activities and supervised care.

3. Model the value of learning, self-discipline, and hard work. Examples: Communicating through questioning and conversation, demonstrating that achievement comes from working hard.

4. Express high but realistic expectations for achievement. Examples: Setting goals and standards that are appropriate for children's age and maturity, recognizing and encouraging special talents, informing friends and family about successes.

5. Encourage children's development/ progress in school. Examples: Maintaining a warm and supportive home, showing interest in children's progress at school, helping with homework, discussing the value of a good education and possible career options, staying in touch with teachers and school staff.

6. Encourage reading, writing, and discussions among family members. Examples: Reading, listening to children read and talking about what is being read.

Communication

Parents and teachers consider communication the number one factor to increase trust. (27)

When teachers and parents are on the “same page” they can engage in more individual and concrete discussion around student progress and develop realistic goals and plans of action that are linked to student achievement. (28)

Parents who receive more consistent information about their children’s school performance report a higher degree of commitment to helping children improve. (29)

Involved families tend to agree that the level of their involvement depends on outreach from teachers and administrators. (30)

Appropriate communication with parents through conferences, phone calls, workshops, school meetings, notes or newsletters and home visits can:

1. Increase parents’ ability to construct a healthy home learning environment for children (31)

2. Help teachers develop better instructional strategies for use in classroom lessons.

3. Have a positive effect on students’ academic achievement. (32)

Student Interest

Most students at all levels – elementary, middle, and high school – want their families to be more knowledgeable partners about schooling and are willing to take active roles in assisting communications between home and school. (33)

When parents come to school regularly, it reinforces the view in the child's mind that school and home are connected and that school is an integral part of the whole family's life. (34)

School and District Leadership

The strongest and most consistent predictors of parent involvement at school and at home are the specific school programs and teacher practices that encourage parent involvement at school and guide parents in how to help their children at home. (35)

School initiated activities to help parents change the home environment can have a strong influence on children’s school performance. (36)

Teachers who provide regular, explicit, extensive feedback elicit higher achievement. (37)

The most effective parent involvement programs are guided by these ideas. (38):

- All parents have strengths and know they are important.

- All parents can contribute to their children’s education and the school.

- All parents can learn how to help their children in school.

- All parents have useful ideas and insights about their children.

-Parents should be consulted in all decisions about how to involve parents.

-All parents really do care deeply about their children.

The most common types of training educators provide parents to increase their knowledge and skills include: (39)

-Basic parenting skills (40)

-Knowledge of school systems and procedures (41)

- Strategies for helping their children with specific subject matter or with homework in

general (42)

- English language or other adult education

content (43)

Obstacles

Hindrances to family involvement tend to fall into one of six major categories:

1. Contextual factors

2. Language barriers

3. Cultural beliefs regarding appropriate roles for parents, teachers, and students

4. Families’ lack of understanding of U.S. schools

5. Families’ lack of knowledge about how to help their children with homework

6. Issues of exclusion and discrimination.

Research finds that:

1. Schools tend to see the parental role as traditional, passive and home-based, whereas many parents are interested in more active roles.

2. Schools are often guilty of not taking the initiative to ask parents for help, and of not welcoming their participation.

3. Schools often organize events for their own convenience and pay little attention to the needs of at-risk parents. (45)

61 percent of schools did not consider parents input in issues (46)

53 percent of schools did not consider parent input in issues involving curriculum and instruction. (47)

49 percent of schools did not consider parent input in issues involving discipline policies procedures. (48)

95 percent of schools did not consider parent input in issues involving monitoring and evaluating teachers. (49)

When families aren’t encouraged to come to

school, and treated poorly if they do come, they get the message that they are NOBODY. And do their kids. (50)

Power differentials that often exist between families and schools may affect home-school-communication. Some schools tend to hold negative stereotypes of poor single minority mothers and communicate with them in controlling, disrespectful, and demoralizing ways. (51)

School activities to develop and maintain

partnerships with families decline with each grade level, and drop dramatically at the transition to middle grades. (52)

Children on average spend 28 hours per week watching television, in addition to watching television, in addition to watching other media. When TV watching is limited to no more than four hours per day, behavior and attention improves for a high number of children. (53)

Sixty-five percent (65%) of African American children and 53% of Mexican-American children watch three plus hours of T.V. per day, compared to 37% of White children. Seven-teen percent (17%) of African American children watch over 5 hours per day. (54)

Children are not getting the needed hours of sleep on a daily basis. Children, who receive less than a full night’s sleep (10-11 hours for 5-12 year olds) on a daily basis, show increased behavioral problems such as hyperactivity and cognitive problems that impact their ability to learn in school. (55)

School activities to develop and maintain partnerships with families decline with each grade level, and drop dramatically at the transition to middle grades. (56)

Teachers often think that low-income parents and single parents will not, can not,

spend as much time helping their children at home as do middle-class parents with more education and leisure time. (57)

No state requires a separate course in parent involvement for teacher licensure. Only a handful of states require parent involvement preparation as part of a course. (58)

Both of the national associations that either accredit or set standards for teacher preparation programs, NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education) and NASDTEC (National Association of State Directors of Teachers Education and Certification), have recently added or strengthened indicators aimed at parent involvement. (59)

(1) Clark, R.M. (1990). Why Disadvantaged Children Succeed. Public Welfare (Spring): 17-23.

(2) Cotton, K., Wikelund, K., Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, School Improvement Research Series. In Parent Involvement in Education.

(3) W. Rioux and N. Berla, Education Week, Jan. 19, 1994

(4) Parent Teacher Association

(5) Rose, Gallup, & Elam, 1997

(6)Rose, Gallup, & Elam, 1997

(7) Walberg (1984) in his review of 29 studies of school–parent programs.

(8)Cotton, K., Wikelund, K., Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, School Improvement Research Series. In Parent Involvement in Education.

(9) Williams, D.L. & Chavkin, N.F. (1989). Essential elements of strong parent involvement programs. Educational Leadership, 47, 18-20

(10) Cotton, K., Wikelund, K., Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, School Improvement Research Series. In Parent Involvement in Education.

(11)Kellaghan, Sloane, Alvarez, & Bloom (1993)

(12) Westat and Policy Studies Associates study, U.S. Department of Education, 2001, summarized.

(13) A New Generation of Evidence: The Family is Critical to Student Achievement : edited by Anne T. Henderson and Nancy

Berla, Center for Law & Education,

Washington, D.C., 1994 (third printing, 1996)

(14) 1997 Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward Public Schools

(15)Epstein, J.L. (1992) School and Family Partnerships. In M. Alkin (ed.) Encyclopedia of Educational Research. New York: MacMillan.

(16)Davies, Don. (1988). Low Income Parents and the Schools: A Research Report and a Plan for Action. Equity and Choice 4,3 (Spring): 51-57. EJ 374 512.

(17) Reynolds, et, al., (6)

(18) Clark (7:85-105)

(19) Mapp (1999)

(20) Lewis A.C., & Henderson, A.T. 1997, Urgent Message: Families crucial to school reform.

(21) 1997 Review of Educational Research, a journal of the American Educational Research Association

(22) Roberts, 1992. In Online Resources for Parent/Family Involvement. ERIC Digest by Ngeow, Karen Yeok-Hwa, 1999.

(23) Tizard, J.; Schofield, W.N.; & Hewison, J. (1982). Collaboration Between Teachers and Parents in Assisting Children’s Reading.

(24) Sattes (5:2)

(25) Ziegler (1987)

(26) Henderson (1:9)

(27) Adams & Christenson, 2000.

(28) Drake, 2000; James, Jurich & Estes, 2001.