FINE Newsletter, Volume III, Issue 3
Issue Topic: Special Summer Issue
Family Involvement News
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up to date on what's new in family involvement. This list of links to current reports, articles, events, and opportunities will help you stay on top of research and resources from HFRP and other field leaders.
New from Harvard Family Research Project
- Webinar 7: Successful Transitions to High School: Promoting High School Success and Facilitating College Readiness
This installment in the Achieving Excellence and Innovation in Family, School, and Community Engagement webinar series highlighted ways to support students and families during the transition from middle to high school—a critical time for setting the course to graduate from high school on time and ready for college. An archive of the webinar presentation, resources related to high school transitions, and presentation slides are all available for download.
- Q&A: Heather Weiss on Evaluating Connected Learning (Spotlight on Digital Media and Learning)
HFRP's founder and director, Heather Weiss, talks with Spotlight about how HFRP is working with the MacArthur Foundtion to evaluate its work at the intersection of digital media and learning. For the past five years, the Foundation has been examining how digital media are changing the way young people learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life.
Articles & Reports
- Teaching Secrets: Communicating With Parents (Education Week Teacher)
This article provides tips for new teachers from a seasoned educator about how to effectively communicate with parents in order to promote student achievement. Effective and proactive communication, the author argues, helps build healthy working relationships between teachers and parents and can help boost student achievement.
- Waiting for a School Miracle (The New York Times)
According to Diane Ravitch, many so-called “miracle” schools that are touted by politicians as having transformed from failing to high proficiency, are not actually so successful when their student data is more closely examined. Ravitch claims that for schools and students to be truly successful we must first invest in parental education, prenatal care, and preschool so that students arrive at school ready to learn.
- Legislative Momentum Stalls for 'Parent Trigger' Proposals (Education Week)
This article reports that “parent-trigger” legislation is on the table in several states and districts, but is facing opposition and questions about implementation. Parent-trigger proposals would allow groups of parents to formally advocate for closing failing schools, restructuring those schools, or developing charters in their place.
- Evaluation of Chicago Child–Parent Centers finds benefits of Early Childhood and Family Engagement Programs last into adulthood (Science Daily)
This summary of the latest findings from an ongoing evaluation of the Chicago Child–Parent Centers, which provide early childhood and family involvement programs for low-income families in Chicago, reveals that program participants had higher educational attainment and socioeconomic status than children who did not participate.
- Spring/Summer Issue (School Community Journal) (PDF, 1.1 MB)
The focus of this recent issue of The School Community Journal is on parent engagement in education. The issue includes a guest editorial by William Jeynes, who writes about the status of research on family involvement, as well other articles that examine patterns of family involvement in charter schools and programs for parents of special needs students.
- Striving to Achieve: Helping Native American Students Succeed (National Caucus of Native American State Legislators)
This report assesses the achievement of Native American students in the United States and provides recommendations for policymakers to promote higher levels of educational achievement for Native Americans. One of the report’s recommendations is that state policymakers find more ways to engage Native American families in their children’s education. The report points to findings from a study of Montana schools, in which “the factor most correlated with higher achievement was the school’s effort to engage parents, families, and communities in the school.”
- Student Progress to Graduation in New York City High Schools (New Visions for Public Schools)
New Visions has developed an early warning system for New York City public schools comprising benchmarks and tools for parents, students, and schools to assess student progress towards high school graduation and college success. This report documents the design and core components of the tool, which is user-friendly and supported by research.
Other Resources
Events
This article is part of the August 2011 FINE Newsletter. The FINE Newsletter shares the newest and best family involvement research and resources from Harvard Family Research Project and other field leaders. To access the FINE Newsletter Archive, visit www.hfrp.org/FINENewsletter.