A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Family Involvement in Children's Education - October 1997

Successful Local Approaches (continued)

Effects on Students and Families

Effective school-family partnerships benefit all involved school staff, parents, and students. Research demonstrates that parent involvement can be an important contributor to student achievement. Effective school-family partnerships can have important benefits for parents as well, helping them to perceive their children's school in a more positive light, enhancing their sense of efficacy as parents, and changing their perceptions of their children as learners (Ames, 1993; Epstein, 1991).

Student Achievement

The experience of the schools and district programs reviewed for this Idea Book supports the conclusion that family involvement can have significant effects on student achievement. Appendix B presents evidence of improvement in student outcomes, wherever it was available, for each of the school or district programs highlighted in this Idea Book. Although it is impossible to attribute student achievement gains or other positive outcomes in any of these schools or districts solely to their parent involvement activities, it does appear that many schools that make parent involvement a priority also see student outcomes improve. For example, of the 13 schools highlighted in this Idea Book and reviewed in appendix B, eight report gains in student achievement over the last one to three years, four report gains in attendance rates or attendance rates remaining consistently over 95 percent, and two report substantial decreases in disciplinary referrals over the last several years. These positive outcomes may be due to increased parent involvement itself, or, what is more likely, to a whole constellation of factors, including a strong instructional program and a commitment to high standards for all students. Further study of these programs would be needed to determine the relative influence of these various factors. Nevertheless, it appears that strong parent involvement is an important feature of many schools that succeed in raising student achievement.

Other Indicators of Success

Most of the schools and programs highlighted in this Idea Book offer evidence that their parent involvement efforts have changed parents in some way. For example, most schools report that more parents are volunteering at school, attending parent-teacher conferences, or signing up for parenting workshops. Evidence of effects on parents among the schools featured here, however, is limited to these measures of participation in school-based activities. In fact, there is little indication that most practitioners in general have done much to evaluate their parent involvement efforts beyond these "body counts." There is a need for evaluation designs that will help practitioners understand, for example, how various parent involvement strategies affect parents' interactions with their children at home, what strategies work best with varied populations of parents, and what kinds of staff development prompt better practice among school staff.


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[Tapping External Supports for Partnerships] [Table of Contents] [Conclusions About Establishing and Sustaining Partnerships]