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"Studies show that the extent to which children are ready to learn and to achieve in school depends also on support from families, with greater family involvement in children's learning identified as a critical link to achieving a high-quality education in a safe, disciplined, learning environment," notes the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in a report, Parents and Schools: Partners in Student Learning. Yet many schools across the nation pay lip service to family involvement or point to an annual open house, semiannual parent-teacher conferences, athletic events, and other minimal offerings as their efforts to involve families. Still other schools encourage families to get involved in their kids' schooling, but offer few avenues for participation, few guidelines for parents to follow, and few tips to the myriad ways families and communities can be involved. And teachers, whose schools of education paid little attention to family involvement, have few skills to know how to effectively engage the parents who want to volunteer in the classroom or those who want to play a more active role from their home. A recent poll conducted by the U.S. Department of Education and the GTE Foundation found that schools can do much more to foster parental involvement. Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed said their children's schools "treat them as important partners in encouraging their children to learn." However, more than three-fourths of the respondents said that teachers need additional training in involving parents, and only about 40 percent said that teachers share examples of students' successful work. In addition, fewer than 30 percent said their schools provided a place for parents to meet. The issues that surround family involvement in the education of children are complex, challenging, and formidable. The makeup of America's classrooms has changed dramatically since the 1950s and '60s. Today, cultural, ethnic, and social diversity reaches into classrooms from Boring, Oregon, to New York City. This diversity brings with it a richness of ideas and histories that provide new learning opportunities for both children and their families. It also brings with it new challenges for teachers, administrators, and communities. "Schools need to establish clear school and district policies on family involvement and reach out to all parents on a continuing basis, providing personal contact, literature, and classes on parenting, literacy training, and parental resource centers," note the authors of Strong Families, Strong Schools: Building Community Partnerships for Learning, a 1994 report from the U.S. Department of Education. But the responsibilities cannot-and should not-fall on schools alone. The American family is changing, and more and more children are being raised in poverty, in non-English-speaking families, and in single-parent households. The Children's Defense Fund reports that the poverty rate for children with parents under age 30 has more than doubled since 1973 to 41 percent, and that the wages of young families have declined by 33 percent over the last two decades. "If the fruits of economic growth had been shared equally among all families over the last 20 years, then the typical young family with children would have seen its income rise by 15 percent instead of falling by 33 percent," says CDF President Marian Wright Edelman. "Strengthening the economic future of young families with children must become a priority." Diverse Culture, Diverse Approaches Cultural diversity in our country brings with it a responsibility to find new ways of reaching out to parents who are uncomfortable with approaching teachers or unaware of ways in which to work with their children's schools. The needs of children reach across the social spectrum, and can only be met in a unified effort that involves schools, health agencies, the business community, law enforcement, the judicial system, religious organizations, social services, and those silent citizens who live and work in the towns and cities across America. Such a commitment brings with it a strong need for staff development focusing on issues of family involvement and cultural awareness. "There is little question that the support a child receives in the home becomes the foundation for success in school," note the authors of Model Strategies in Bilingual Education: Family Literacy and Parent Involvement. "Improving the amount and quality of parent involvement in children's education remains a continuing challenge. This is particularly true for economically disadvantaged parents, who often have had unhappy experiences in school and may feel ill-equipped to help their children negotiate the educational environment that the parents perceived as alien or threatening to them." While the cultural landscape of America has changed dramatically in the last quarter-century, it has only been in recent years that schools and other institutions have taken on family involvement as an issue of equity. "Although families with school-age children have become increasingly diverse, in terms of culture and language, until recently, the connections between cultural diversity and family education received scant attention," note Heather McCollum and Alexander W.W. Russo in Model Strategies. The report profiles nine exemplary sites that exhibit a wide range of parent involvement and family literacy programs. Five sites are bilingual programs-four of them teaching Spanish speakers and one serving Navajo families. The programs shared several common features, including:
Child Trends, an independent nonprofit research firm, notes that the connections between mother and child in literacy and education reform efforts points to another need: providing services to both children and adults. A study that involved nearly 800 families receiving welfare in the Atlanta, Georgia area revealed that young children (three to five years old) living in poverty scored low on tests of vocabulary and school readiness. "Some of the families in the Atlanta study-like some AFDC families nationwide-are highly disadvantaged and may need special assistance as part of welfare reform," Child Trends notes. "In addition to the children's poor performance on tests of school readiness, more than half the mothers in this study have low reading and math skills, and 42 percent report symptoms that place them at risk of clinical depression. These are potential obstacles that should be considered by governors, members of Congress, and others whose welfare reform proposals include rapid job placement for welfare recipients." Fathers' Role Gaining Importance Fathers, too, must become more involved in the lives of their children. A study by the Department of Education found that children do better in school when their fathers are involved in their schools. Fathers, the study notes, can be a positive force in their children's education, and when they do get involved, their children are more likely to get mostly A's in school. The study, part of the NCES 1996 National Household Education Survey, also shows that fathers in two-parent families are less likely than mothers to be very involved in their children's schools. Overall, children in two-parent families where the father is highly involved get better grades, enjoy school more, and are less likely to repeat a grade, compared with those in which only mothers are highly involved. However, fewer than 30 percent of the fathers in two-parent families were highly involved in their children's education, compared to 56 percent of the mothers, the report notes. The NCES surveyed 16,910 kindergartners through 12th-graders in its study, which resulted in a report, Fathers' Involvement in Their Children's Schools. The study found that mothers and fathers are more likely to be highly involved when schools welcome parents and make it easy for them to be involved. Parental involvement is higher if classroom and school discipline are maintained and if teachers and students respect one another. The findings about fathers are especially significant because their roles in their children's education have been overlooked in research. In the past, it was primarily the role of the mother that was considered essential to improving student success. Other findings include:
"This study tell tells me that if America's Dads got as involved as America's Moms in their children's education, America's children would be studying harder and getting a lot more A's," said U.S. Secretary of Education Richard Riley. "Dads make a powerful difference in defining expectations and challenging children to do their best." However, many children live in homes where the father is absent. According to 1994 Census Bureau data, 39 percent of children under 18 live apart from their biological fathers. Furthermore, close to 50 percent of children in disrupted families hadn't seen their fathers at all in the past year, a 1991 survey by the National Commission on Children revealed. And nearly 20 percent of children in female-headed families hadn't seen their fathers in five years. While divorce and out-of-wedlock births are two primary causes for children living in households without fathers, another reason for physical absence is incarceration: Bureau of Justice Statistics report that in 1994 nearly 800,000 dads were in prison. Broad Approaches Needed "Although the family's role in children's learning is as important today as it was 30 years ago, the circumstances affecting family life have greatly changed," notes Strong Families, Strong Schools. "To overcome these challenges, we need to support family involvement; we must foster a partnership among parents, children, teachers, schools and the community to improve learning. Getting families involved is not easy. It will require hard work and changes in attitudes." In a research synthesis, the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory (NCREL) notes that factors contributing to low levels of participation among different ethnic or culture groups must be addressed by educators. Factors such as bad experiences with schools, general distrust of institutions, language barriers, a traditional deference to education, and a cultural approach that says it is disrespectful to question teachers all can work against involvement by minority parents. "Often what is interpreted as a lack of interest or caring is, instead, a cultural predisposition to interpret help at home with interference and disrespect for the teacher," NCREL notes. "Once parents became aware of the need to help their children at home and were given a set of strategies to follow, they were quite willing to help." There is a strong research base stretching three decades that supports family involvement as an avenue to improved student learning and other desirable outcomes. "A significant body of research indicates that when parents participate in their children's education, the result is an increase in student achievement and an improvement of students' attitudes," notes NCREL. "Increased attendance, fewer discipline problems, and higher aspirations also have been correlated with an increase in parent involvement." However, research has not looked into the various forms of parental involvement with an eye toward assessing which is most likely to strengthen student achievement. Schools, though, generally focus their efforts around two major approaches:
In 1996, the NCES surveyed 810 public elementary schools to determine the types of activities schools sponsor to encourage parental involvement, the amount of parent participation in those activities, and the extent to which parent input is considered in decisionmaking related to school issues. While the NCES survey found that the vast majority of schools-84 to 97 percent-held activities such as open houses, parent-teacher conferences, art events, sporting activities, and science fairs or other academic events, far fewer involved parents in decisionmaking. "At the other extreme, parents have little say in decisions regarding the monitoring and evaluating of teachers, with 74 percent of all schools indicating that parents have no say at all in this process," the NCES survey found. Likewise, few schools (20 percent) reported involving parents in decisions about allocating funds or selection of library books or materials. In four other areas-curriculum or instructional program, the design of special programs, discipline policies and procedures, and health-related topics or policies-fewer than 14 percent of schools reported considering parent input to a great extent, and between 34 and 38 percent of schools reported considering it to a moderate extent. The NCES survey found a correlation between income level and family participation in school-sponsored activities. In general, as family income levels declined, so did family participation. "One of the most striking differences in parent attendance at school-sponsored events was linked to the poverty status of the school," write authors Nancy Carey and Elizabeth Farris. "In general, as the poverty status of the school increased, reports of high parent attendance decreased significantly." Similar relationships were found when the percentage of minority students enrolled in the school was taken into account: The higher the percentage of minority students, the lower the percentage of families participating in school-sponsored events. However, minority enrollment and a school's poverty status were highly related, with 87 percent of schools with high minority enrollments also categorized as high poverty schools. While poverty does appear to play a role in family involvement in the schools, neither the financial status of the family nor their level of education are determining factors in student success. In its 1994 report, Strong Families, Strong Schools, the Department of Education concluded: "Studies of individual families show that what the family does is more important to student success than family income or education. This is true whether the family is rich or poor, whether the parents finished high school or not, or whether the child is in preschool or in the upper grades." Other findings in the report, which is based on a review of 30 years of research, include:
Child Trends reported that the percentage of children watching television for six or more hours a day declined between 1986 and 1992 for children of all ages. For nine-year-olds, the percentage dropped from 31 percent to 19 percent; for 13-year-olds, it declined from 20 percent to 13 percent; and for 17-year-olds it dropped from 9 to 7 percent. In each group, Child Trends reported, Black students were more likely to report watching television for long hours than were White or Hispanic students. Television viewing declined for children between 13 and 17 years whose parents had graduated from college. A majority of children between the ages of three and five have parents who read to them or tell them stories on a regular basis. In 1993, 64 percent of parents participated in these activities routinely. However, Child Trends also reports that fewer than half (44 percent) of fourth-graders and less than a quarter of eighth- and 12th-graders (22 and 23 percent, respectively) say they read for fun on a daily basis. A Democratic Process Developing effective partnerships requires attention to some of the essential elements of democratic process such as recognizing different interests, respecting all participants, and respecting minority viewpoints. Conflict resolution, mediation, negotiation, and compromise also are necessary skills in a democratic process. "A good place to start is for schools to bring together teachers and other educators with families, students, and community representatives to discuss and agree on mutually important goals for children, schools, and the community and then to make collaborative plans to achieve them," notes the Department of Education in a report, Building Partnerships. "Building a partnership does not mean educators and other professionals must give up their roles as experts. It means recognizing that parents have expertise about their own children." Based on Joyce
Epstein's six categories of partnership activities, a comprehensive
program of partnerships will include such
elements as:
The National PTA has published the National Standards for Parent/ Family Involvement
Programs. The six program standards include:
Ways in which schools can support family involvement in
education:
Ways in which families can support children's learning At home:
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Date of Last Update: 9/28/01 
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ew areas of research are so clear: Involve families in their children's education and academic performance will improve.
Parent education and family support
