Great Schools Issue Paper: Parent and Family Involvement
One of the eight national goals for education calls for every school
to work with parents to increase parental involvement and participation
in the social, emotional, and academic growth of children (Progress Report
on National Education Goals, 1999). This goal was considered critical
to successful school improvement. A wealth of research shows that the
family is the child’s first and most important teacher. Students
do best when they are raised in homes characterized by supportive and
demanding parents who stress the importance of education and who encourage
and expect high academic achievement.
Two Types of Parent
Involvement
There are two kinds of parent involvement. The first occurs within the
home, and ideally will include behaviors such as the following: setting
high expectations, monitoring homework, limiting television viewing or
outside work, knowing a child’s friends, discussing school events
with children, valuing and talking about education, and showing respect
for teachers, and all school staff.
The second kind of involvement is the physical presence of parent(s)
in the school. This may range from occasional attendance at a parent-teacher
conference or school event to regular and ongoing participation in school
activities (e.g., serving on committees).
Selected Research
on the Impact of Parent Involvement on Student Achievement
There are numerous examples of research documenting the positive relationship
between high levels of parent involvement and high levels of student success.
In general, this research shows that a variety of measures of school success
(higher grades and test scores, more positive attitudes and behaviors,
higher graduation rates, and fewer placements in special education) are
associated with homes where parents encourage learning, set high (but
reasonable) expectations for their children, and become involved in their
children’s education at home and in the school (Othrow and Stout,
1997).
A few examples of specific research:
- In her review of the literature on family or parent involvement and
student achievement, Hendrickson (1987) concludes that“ . . . for
now the evidence is beyond dispute: parent involvement improves student
achievement. When parents are involved, children do better in school,
and they go to better schools”
(p. 1). Hendrickson notes the following:
1. The family provides the primary educational environment.
2. Involving parents in their children’s formal education improves
student achievement.
3. Parent involvement is most effective when it is comprehensive, long-lasting,
and well-planned.
4. The benefits are not confined to early childhood or the elementary
level; there are strong effects from involving parents continuously
throughout high school.
5. Involving parents in their own children’s education at home
is not enough. To ensure the quality of schools as institutions serving
the community, parents must be involved at all levels in the school.
6. Children from low-income and minority families have the most to gain
when schools involve parents. Parents do not have to be well-educated
to help.
7. We cannot look at the school and the home in isolation from one another;
we must see how they interconnect with each other and with the world
at large.
- Swap (1990) also concludes that parent involvement is especially
crucial for children at risk. Further, she argues that parent involvement
is not a frill, but a necessity. “For parent involvement to be
transformed into meaningful support for student achievement and continuous
school improvement, parent programs need to be carefully planned, implemented,
and monitored with the goal of educational excellence constantly in
the forefront. Although there are many creative and successful ideas
and programs upon which to draw, there is no single recipe for effective
home-school collaboration” (p. 76).
- Research shows that participation in well-designed parent-involvement
programs can improve parents’ self image, increase their respect
for teachers and schools, and give increased confidence to help their
children succeed in school (Othrow and Stout). Programs also have been
shown to encourage some parents to continue their own education.
- Research by Patrikakou and Weissberg (1999) shows that student achievement
is enhanced by the quality of parental involvement, not simply the quantity.
Likewise, they report that when teachers reach out to parents and when
parents perceive that their involvement is welcomed, parents are more
likely to be involved in the education of their children.
Some ways
parents can help their children succeed in school
- Create a positive attitude toward learning. Support your child's
school and all adults in the school who deal with children.
- Talk about what happens in school on a regular basis. A family
dinner may be the ideal setting for these discussions.
- If your child is employed during the school year, limit the
hours of work. Research shows student achievement is affected
negatively when students work more than about 15 hours each week.
- Read aloud to your children when they are young. Encourage them
to read as they get older. Read together. Take your children to
the library.
- See that your children do their homework. Set aside a special
place for homework (not in front of the television set) and make
sure homework is done before recreational activities are permitted.
- Get involved in your child's homework. Assist your child, but
don't do the homework.
- Establish high expectations for your child. Remind your child
that success in school is mostly due to hard work. Success is
not a matter of luck or "being born smart."
- Help your children pursue interesting topics outside school.
- Limit television viewing and don't allow children to have a
television set (or telephone) in their rooms. Research shows that
U.S. children watch more television than children in nearly all
other countries. And, students who watch a lot of television don't
do as well in school.
- Model appropriate behavior for your child. Limit your own television
viewing. Read every evening.
- Celebrate the successes of your child. Use failures as opportunities
to learn, rather than as evidence that the child is not capable
of being successful.
- Attend parent-teacher conferences; visit your child's school;
if possible, volunteer to help.
- See to it that your child starts each day with a good breakfast.
Make sure that your child arrives at school on time and is never
truant.
- Computers can be a useful tool for learning. If there is a computer
in your home, monitor both the time and use of the computer.
- Research shows that certain activities, beginning at birth,
promote better learning in children. Parents should learn all
they can about child development, including brain development.
- Become knowledgeable about the school program and, whenever
possible, become involved in the school in order to make it a
better place for children.
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Accepting Responsibility:
the Role of the Child
Although the family is crucial in determining student success or failure
in school, this does not mean that the student has little or no responsibility.
There is considerable evidence to show that many students fail to achieve
simply because they don’t put forth sufficient effort. Ultimately,
student success or failure in school is a matter of personal responsibility.
Too little time spent on homework and too little effort, combined with
too much television or employment during the school year, have a negative
effect on student success in school. Selected research findings in the
important area of personal behaviors and personal responsibility follow.
Although some of these studies are several years old, the conclusions
are still valid.
- A 1991 study of Wisconsin’s top students — the All-State
Academic Scholars — showed that these students have the following
characteristics: they have positive feelings about their school experiences;
they attributed their success in high school to such things as hard
work, self-discipline, organization, ability, and high motivation; they
tended to watch relatively little television during the school week;
they tended to associate with students who also were successful in school;
and most report they are avid readers. These students also completed
numerous courses in science and mathematics and were less likely to
work during the school year. Those who did work averaged about 13 hours
per week. Finally, their parents exhibited high levels of interest and
involvement in their education (Allen and Kickbusch, 1991).
- U.S. students do far less homework than their counterparts in other
countries. Furthermore, National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP) results show a consistent, positive relationship between proficiency
and the amount of time spent on homework. “The startling
fact remains, however, that more than two-thirds (71%) of the high school
seniors typically do one hour or less of homework each day” (Mullis,
et al., 1990, p. 74).
- There is a negative relationship between school performance and hours
of television viewing. For example, an international assessment of 13-year-olds
in mathematics and science reported that in all countries and provinces
assessed, the greater the amount of time spent watching television,
the weaker the performance of students on the science and mathematics
tests. U.S. students were more likely to watch television than their
counterparts in the other countries or provinces. For example, 31 percent
of U.S. students reported watching five or more hours of television
daily; this was the highest of the participating countries/provinces
(Lapointe, Mead, and Phillips, 1989).
- In general, studies suggest that students who work at paid jobs during
the school year in excess of about 15 hours each week are less likely
to succeed in school. Steinberg, et al., (1988) concluded that
this seems to be a special problem among students who begin working
when they are sophomores and juniors. Nonetheless, Steinberg warns that
there are shortcomings associated with the research about the relationship
between employment and academic achievement. In general, there has been
a failure to differentiate among work experiences; it may be that the
effects of employment may vary as to the type of jobs held by students.
In fact, research shows that very routinized, low-level jobs do little
for students’ development and can lead to cynical attitudes toward
work.
- More than two-thirds of American high school juniors and seniors and
one-half of sophomores hold jobs while attending school. Although
some students work out of necessity, the vast majority hold jobs in
order to obtain spending money (often to operate an automobile). Research
shows that the United States is the only major industrialized country
which allows or encourages student employment. Japanese society, for
example, believes that school is the “work” of teenagers.
More recently, analysis of results on the Third International Mathematics
and Science Study (TIMSS, 1998) found that more U.S. 12th grade
students report working at a paid job, and working for longer hours,
than do students in any other TIMSS nation. The TIMSS study is posted
on the Internet at http://nces.ed.gov/naep.
- A study in the Green Bay school system, for example, found that among
students who worked more than 20 hours a week after school, there was
weaker performance in school. Steinberg and Greenberger (1990) note
that among students who work there is greater use of drugs and alcohol,
and a more cynical attitude toward work. These authors note, “Ours
is the only major industrialized nation that encourages student employment
among college-bound teenagers. Whereas Japanese, German, and Swedish
youngsters spend their afternoons and evenings studying, ours are flipping
burgers and staffing checkout counters.”
- The authors of the Green Bay study also note: “Today, high school
is all too often something that American adolescents fit into their
work schedules, rather than the reverse. And as if this weren't troublesome
enough, the major employers of teenagers constantly lobby Washington
(and Wisconsin) to relax existing restrictions on the hours children
are permitted to work. They would rather our 14-year-olds work longer
hours, and for lower wages to boot.”
- There are significant numbers of students in the United States who
have an anti-learning, anti-school attitude. Steinberg and Dornbusch
(1996) studied more than 20,000 students and hundreds of parents from
nine high schools in northern California and Wisconsin. Their central
finding is that for many teenagers there is a culture in which success
in school is not sought or valued. Other findings include the following:
- Nearly 20 percent of students surveyed say that they do not try
as hard as they can in school because they are concerned about what
their friends will think.
- More than half of students say that they could bring home grades
of C or lower without their parents becoming upset.
- One in five parents consistently attend school programs; in contrast,
more than 40 percent never attend.
- The average high school student spends four hours a week on homework
outside of school. Fifty percent of students say they do not do
the homework they are assigned.
- Two-thirds of high school students have a job, and one-half of
them work more than 15 hours each week.
- Steinberg and Dornbusch argue that significant changes are needed
to improve schools, including more parenting education, fewer hours
of employment by students, and steps which make it harder for students
to simply “go through the motions” and still graduate and
attend college.
- A specific example of an anti-school attitude is cited by Ogbu (1990).
He concludes that many African-American youngsters develop an attitude
and value system contrary to the goals of education. He notes
that we do not know at what age many African-American children begin
to feel the influence of the oppositional cultural frame of reference
and identity, but the earliest evidence from research is among children
approaching adolescence (pp. 79-80).
- Motivation is an important factor influencing success in school.
Studies of Asian-American students have shown most perform well
in schools, with scores in mathematics and science as high as, or higher
than, those of white students. Asian-American students as a group have
been shown to be more committed to academic excellence, to be more likely
to take high level academic courses, to spend more time on homework,
and to be less likely to be absent from school. They also are more likely
to have higher educational aspirations than other students (Peng, 1984).
Parents and Teachers
Agree About What is Appropriate Parent Involvement
In the fall of 1998, Public Agenda (a nonpartisan, nonprofit public opinion
research organization) completed a study on parent involvement in public
education. The most significant finding is that parents and teachers mostly
tend to agree that the most appropriate type of parent involvement is
that which takes place in the home. This finding is important for any
school that seeks to establish programs to encourage parent-school involvement.
- · Most parents (80%) perceive parental involvement as something
they do at home, such as checking homework and encouraging their children
to learn. It is a fact that a minority of parents say they would
“feel very comfortable” in the following types of school involvement:
- helping to evaluate teachers (37% comfortable).
- helping to decide how to spend the schools money (36% comfortable)
- serving on a committee to decide which new teachers to hire (31%
comfortable)
- serving on a committee to propose changing how teachers teach
(27% comfortable)
- helping to plan the school curriculum (25% comfortable.
On the other hand, between 85 percent and 90 percent of parents would
be “very” or “somewhat” comfortable volunteering to
chaperone a trip or party, helping with a school event such as a career
day or book sale, or volunteering to supervise and guide kids in after-school
activities.
- Just as many parents tend to feel uncomfortable in certain kinds of
school involvement (such as evaluating teachers or developing curriculum),
it also is true that relatively few teachers want parents to become
involved in school management decisions.The percent of teachers who
“approve” of parent involvement in six areas follows:
- Propose changes to classroom teaching methods (15% approve)
- Make hiring decisions on teachers and administrators (25% approve)
- Evaluating the quality of teachers (26% approve)
- Suggest materials and topics for the curriculum (49% approve)
- Make decisions on spending school funds (54% approve)
- Propose changes to the lunchroom menu (85% approve)
Conclusion
A 1994 study by the Rand Corporation found that the most important factor
affecting student achievement is the parents’ level of formal education
(especially the education level of the child’s mother). This finding
suggests that as a group parents who are well educated themselves are
more likely to assume an active and ongoing role in the education of their
children. Although true, this does not mean that there is little hope
for children whose parents have had little formal education. It simply
means that extra effort may be required to have all parents become more
involved in the education of their children. A solid body of research
tells us what must be done by parents and by schools to enhance family
involvement in the education of children; the challenge is to find ways
for teachers and parents to work together effectively to help all students
succeed. This is, after all, a shared responsibility.
— WEAC Division for Instruction and Professional Development
Sources
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Merit Semi- Finalists and All-State Academic Scholars, 1990-1991 School
Year. Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Education Association Council, 1991.
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Grissmer, David W. et al. Student Achievement and the Changing American
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Difference: An International Assessment of Mathematics and Science. Princeton,
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