The Harvard Family Research Project separated from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to become the Global Family Research Project as of January 1, 2017. It is no longer affiliated with Harvard University.

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Dear FINE Member,

Here are this month's FINE member updates. As always, please feel free to forward this information to your friends and other education colleagues.

New From FINE

• Research Digest: Approaches to Parental Involvement for Improving the Academic Performance of Elementary School Children in Grades K–6

  Chad Nye, Herb Turner and Jamie Schwartz summarize their report on the most dependable evidence on the effect of parental involvement intervention programs on improving the academic performance of elementary school-age children. The digest shows that parent involvement has a positive and significant effect on children's overall academic performance.

• Full Report

  You can find the full report on which the research digest is based on the Campbell Collaboration website at the link above.

• Family–School Relations During Adolescence: Linking Interdisciplinary Research and Practice

  On July 20–21, 2006, the Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University hosted a 2-day conference on family educational involvement in adolescence. The conference, which showcased diverse perspectives from researchers, parents, teachers and principals, featured two of Harvard Family Research Project’s researchers: Holly Kreider presented “Challenges and Opportunities in Moving Family Involvement Research into Practice,” and Suzanne Bouffard shared her research on “Tapping into Technology: New Methods for Promoting Family Educational Involvement.” You can watch and listen to conference presentations as well as download slides at the link above.

New From Harvard Family Research Project

• New Issue of The Evaluation Exchange on Building and Evaluating Out-of-School Time Connections

  This double issue of The Evaluation Exchange explores creating and evaluating connections between out-of school time (OST) programs and other settings in which children and youth live, learn, and grow. The connections between OST programs and families are among the linkages featured in this issue.

• Request Hard Copies of The Evaluation Exchange

  If you are interested in receiving multiple hard copies of this issue for a conference or training workshop, please send a request to hfrp_pubs@gse.harvard.edu and let us know how you plan to use them.

• Summer Success: Challenges and Strategies in Creating Quality Academically Focused Summer Programs

  This new evaluation brief from HFRP synthesizes process findings from 34 evaluations of academically focused summer programs to examine ways of creating quality programming for youth. The brief identifies seven challenges to implementing high quality summer programs for youth, as well as promising strategies for overcoming these challenges. One of these challenges is building strong, positive connections with participants' families.

Policy

• Testimony on Home Visitation

  In September of 2006, Deborah Daro, a Research Fellow at Chapin Hall, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Education Reform about recent research that shows home visitation programs can promote early childhood learning and strengthen parent–child relationships. You can read her complete testimony at the link above.

Tool Kit

• ToolKit for Hispanic Families

  The Department of Education recently released a tool kit for Hispanic families that includes a variety of resources to help students succeed in school. The tool kit was developed with guidance from over 1,800 Hispanic parents at Parent Information and Resource Centers across the country and is available in both English and Spanish.

Books and Reports

• Diverse Partnerships for Student Success: Strategies and Tools to Help School Leaders

  This new book offers strategies to help educational leaders create and sustain successful partnerships in socio-economically diverse societies. Larry E. Decker and collaborators present ideas for mobilizing the resources of families, community members, and organizations in support of the school's goals.

• School and Parent Interaction by Household Language and Poverty Status: 2002–2003

  The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) describes language minority parents' perceptions of school-to-home communication practices and opportunities for parent involvement at school. Data for this issue brief come from surveys of parents of U.S. school-age students from both primarily English-speaking and primarily Spanish-speaking households during the 2002–2003 school year.

News Clips

• “Tips for a Better Parent–School Relationship”

  Jay Matthews from the Washington Post shares 10 recommendations from both educators and parents for better parent–school relationships.

• “Views Differ Over NCLB Rules on Involving Parents”

  This article from Education Week describes how family involvement scholars Joyce Epstein and Annette Lareau perceive the opportunities and barriers for family involvement under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). It distills what NCLB says about involving parents in school and highlights some of the current findings about the “parent involvement gap.”

Workshop

• Designing and Conducting Evaluation Research Studies: A Workshop Series for Education Practitioners

  WestEd conducts a series of workshops to build the capacity of educational practitioners to design and conduct rigorous, high-quality evaluation research studies, and to be critical consumers of evaluation research findings. You can learn more at the link above.

Webcast

• Increasing Parent Involvement in Schools

  On Tuesday, November 14, from 11:00–12:30 p.m. Central Time, Families & Schools Together (FAST) at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research will present a webcast on “Increasing Parent Involvement in Schools: FAST as an Engagement Strategy.”

Contact Us

Have a problem with the website or questions and comments concerning our work? Send an email to fine@gse.harvard.edu.

Enjoy!

FINE – The Family Involvement Network of Educators