Building Relationships for

Student Success

by Bracken Reed

A new publication from NWREL, Building Relationships for Student Success: School-Family-Community Partnerships and Student Achievement in the Northwest, draws from recent research and the direct experience of schools to give a clear picture of successful partnership strategies. Authors Diane Dorfman and Amy Fisher reviewed research literature on the topic and interviewed staff members at Northwest schools to see what research-based methods look like in practice.

The authors offer a practical summary of the recent research synthesis, A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement (2002) by Anne Henderson and Karen Mapp, which looks at 51 qualitative and quantitative studies and offers conclusions and recommendations.

The research defines family involvement in much broader terms than the traditional school-based model, the authors say. Many of the studies grouped these diverse activities into four components:

Participation in school activities and programs
Parental aspirations and expectations
Home structure that supports learning
Communication with children about school

Both in the research and at the schools contacted by the authors, there was a desire to determine which school activities have the greatest effect on student achievement and whether certain activities are more popular or successful with certain social groups. Equally important were non-school factors involving parents’ expectations, home environment, and communicating to children the importance of education. While parent and community involvement in school activities remains important, both teachers and parents emphasized the equal importance of these non-school factors.

With this in mind, many teachers and family involvement coordinators are working to support parent involvement in the home. At one school with a high population of English language learners, this included giving parents native-language materials to keep them in touch with school activities, promote at-home reading activities, and improve their ability to help their children with homework.

Another issue that Dorfman and Fisher highlight from the research is that poverty and race have been consistently overemphasized as factors in the success or failure of family involvement programs. They note, "Many current research findings and practices indicate that assumptions about poor and minority parents’ noninvolvement are largely unfounded."

The six schools Dorfman and Fisher contacted have strong family involvement practices while serving high-poverty, high-minority communities. In each case, the school has concentrated on "building mutual, respectful relationships" and using curriculum that makes meaningful "connections between students’ lives and their families and communities."

These connections between research and practice make Building Relationships for Student Success a valuable tool for educators. "We have looked at schools that do not benefit from any extraordinary circumstances," yet have achieved extraordinary success, the authors say. Each one is an example of research informing practice with positive results for student achievement.

To order, see the Document Order Form or visit the NWREL Products Catalog Online at www.nwrel.org/comm/catalog.