A New Wave of Evidence: The Impact of School, Family, and Community Connections on Student Achievement

A Forum — May 9, 2003

Forum Summary

Catherine Jordan, Program Manager at the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory and head of the National Center for Family and Community Connections with Schools, introduced the panel and the work of the Center. The Center is charged with providing research-based information about community and family involvement to parents, policymakers, educators, and others. Each year they seek out, synthesize, and disseminate the latest research on family and community involvement. Currently, the Center is in the midst of publishing a series of five reports on the topic of school, community, and family involvement; A New Wave of Evidence is the second report in this series. The full report can be downloaded free of charge from www.sedl.org/connections/resources/.

Anne Henderson, from the Institute for Education and Social Policy and an author A New Wave of Evidence, explained that the report grew out of the need to update the research about the effects of school, family, and community involvement on student achievement. The report examined a group of 80 studies and selected those that used sound methodology. Fifty-one studies were selected. These studies addressed three different topics: 1) how parent, family, and community engagement affects student achievement; 2) effective practices to connect schools, families, and communities; and 3) parent and community organizing to improve schools.

Karen Mapp, president of the Institute for Responsive Education, described the study’s findings relative to these topics:

The effects of parent, family, and community engagement on student achievement

The research found that there is a positive and convincing relationship between family involvement and benefits for students, including improved academic achievement. This relationship holds across families of all economic, racial/ethnic, and educational background and for students at all ages: students with involved parents, no matter their background, are more likely to earn higher grades and test scores, enroll in higher-level programs, be promoted and earn credits, adapt well to school and attend regularly, have better social skills and behavior, and graduate and go on to higher education. Family involvement also has a protective effect; the more families can support their children’s progress, the better their children do in school and the longer they stay in school.

Parental and community involvement that is linked to improving student learning (for example, open houses focusing on student work) has a greater effect on student achievement than other types of involvement initiatives, and programs and interventions that engage families in supporting their children’s learning at home are linked to higher student achievement. The study found that while the efforts of families to support their children’s learning at home may not always be obvious to school officials, families of all cultural, educational, and income levels do encourage their children, talk with them about school, help them plan for higher education, and keep them focused on learning and homework. Research also showed that school reform was more likely to be successful if families were involved. “There is a powerful link between engaging families and success of school reforms.”

Effective practices to connect schools, families, and community

When programs and initiatives focus on building respectful and trusting relationships among school staff, families, and community members, they are effective in creating and sustaining family and community connections with schools. Effective programs recognize barriers that block involvement, give families a voice in decision making that will affect their children, welcome families into the school community, and ask them what their needs are. Effective programs embrace a philosophy of partnership; they recognize that the responsibility for children’s educational development is a collaborative endeavor among parents, school staff, and community members. Parent involvement programs that are effective in engaging diverse families recognize, respect, and address cultural and class differences.

Parent and community organizing to improve schools

This form of involvement differs from traditional family and community involvement initiatives because it is initiated, designed, and controlled by those outside of schools. This form of organizing builds a base of parents and community members to engage in collective action and focuses on parent and community leadership to produce concrete improvements in low-performing schools; it is a growing movement and is a form of accountability that is very different from the predominant approach which bases accountability on test scores and sanctioning schools. The movement is growing most quickly in low-income areas and the rural South. The research shows that community organizing is achieving positive results including upgraded school facilities, improved school leadership and staffing, higher quality learning programs for students, new resources and programs to improve teaching and curriculum, and new funding for after school programs and family supports.

Based on their findings, Henderson and Mapp issued the following recommendations:

1. Work with school staff to broaden the definition of family and community involvement. Recognize that all families, regardless of income, education, or ethnicity are involved in their children’s education and want guidance in their efforts to support their children’s learning. Encourage staff to implement both in-school and away-from-school initiatives that encourage families to be involved in their children’s education.
2. Help families guide their children’s learning from preschool through high school. Give parents information and tools, particularly parents of high school students who may not know how to help their children. Provide training for new and experienced teachers so they can acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to relate to families and communities, and to help families support their children’s learning at home.
3. Organize all efforts to engage families and communities around one goal: improving student learning. Match the strategies used to engage families to the grade level of the student; family involvement initiatives should evolve as children age.
4. Focus efforts to engage families on developing trusting and respectful relationships. Create opportunities for engagement that are welcoming for families and community members. Build personal relationships between families and school staff. Create a ‘joining’ process and give teachers time to meet one on one with families. Embrace partnership and share power. Consult all families about policies. Involve families in action research. Provide them with access to principal and staff.
5. Respect cultural and class differences, and recognize and build upon families’ cultures. Encourage all families (not just the few) to become involved in decision-making. See communities and families as having valuable assets rather than being liabilities. Acknowledge the knowledge base of families. Realize that families are more likely to become involved when they understand that they should be involved, feel capable of making a contribution, and feel invited by the school and their children.
6. Design and conduct research that is more rigorous and focused, and that uses more culturally sensitive and empowering definitions of parent involvement. Use different types of research methods to shed light on all questions and issues. Encourage research that focuses on the role of family engagement in supporting school reform, improving achievement, and closing the achievement gap.

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