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www.HFRP.org

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 announcements. Please feel free to forward this information to friends and other education colleagues.

New on the FINE Website

  • FINE Forum e-Newsletter on Renewing Teacher-Parent Relations

    Teachers need to be supported so that they can engage with parents in new and positive ways. In the Fall 2003 issue of the FINE Forum experts share the exemplary practices of teachers, teacher educators, and community organizers for building relationships with parents and community members.

    • Program Spotlight
      Dennis Shirley, Professor and Chair of Teacher Education at Boston College, designs and teaches his urban education courses in collaboration with urban teachers and holds classes in urban public school sites. A community organizing effort to bring more families into the school for Parents’ Night is a central project in one course.

    • Questions & Answers
      “In terms of the socialization of children, there’s no more important dialogue than that between parents and teachers,” explains Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot. Through her method of portraiture she seeks to make palpable the intricate dynamics of teacher-parent conversations.

    • Teacher Talk
      A ninth grade teacher describes the revitalization of Parents’ Night at an urban high school in Boston and how it transformed his own expectations for parent involvement.

  • Member Insight by Leah Mundell and Gretchen Suess

    Beginning this year, Philadelphia parents will be graded by teachers on the quality of home support they provide their children. In Member Insights, Leah Mundell and Gretchen Suess of Research for Action discuss this new policy and propose an alternative “report card” to better foster dialogue between teachers and parents. Research for Action is a Philadelphia-based nonprofit organization committed to enriching the public dialogue about school reform.

Recent Reports and Articles

  • Preservice Teachers' Notions of Families and Schooling

    What assumptions and expectations do preservice teachers have about working with families? From a survey of first-year elementary and secondary teacher education students, Graue and Brown conclude that preservice teachers' constructions of family tend to be limited in scope, reflecting their own experience. Teacher education programs need to provide the theoretical background and practical experience that will better prepare teachers for partnering with diverse families.

  • Do Students Have Too Much Homework?

    Contrary to media reports of homework inflation, students actually receive an average of less than one hour a day. The Brookings Institution’s Brown Center and the RAND corporation analyzed four major data surveys to reach this conclusion. They find that time spent on homework has not changed substantially in the last 20 years and most parents are satisfied with the amount of homework their children receive.

  • Vital Voices: Building Constituencies for Public School Reform

    An informed and mobilized public is necessary for achieving significant and sustainable school reform. To address this goal the Ford Foundation’s Constituency Building for Public School Reform Initiative provided over $30 million to projects engaged in community organizing for school reform. This report identifies strategies and challenges involved in constituency building. It describes promising approaches used by the initiative’s grantees.

  • Where We Are Now: 12 Things You Need to Know About Public Opinion and Public Schools

    Public Agenda’s “survey of surveys” draws on a decade of public opinion research related to public schooling. Parents receive low ratings from teachers on their involvement in students’ education. And although parent involvement activities such as helping with homework and volunteering in the classroom are seen as important by both parents and teachers, only 5% of teachers think parents should be directly involved in the management of schools.

  • Schools Uniting Neighborhoods: Successful Collaboration in an Environment of Constant Change

    Under the Schools Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) program in Portland and Multonmah County, Oregon, schools become community learning centers by offering before school and after school classes, parent support and involvement activities, community and cultural events, and social services for youth and families. Program successes include improvements in student achievement as well as increased parent and community involvement.

  • Making the Difference: Research and Practice in Community Schools

    This report describes 20 different community school models across the country that help improve student performance by mobilizing community resources in support of student learning.

  • Baselines for Assessment of Choice Programs

    Opponents fear that school choice programs serve to benefit the children of more alert and aggressive parents, while less advantaged children are left behind in failing schools. However, the authors of this report believe that information is needed on whether and to what extent the children of more assertive parents are already receiving advantages in the current public education system. This report analyzes how inequalities occur in the conventional public school system. The authors conclude that alert and aggressive parents currently work the bureaucracy to get the best for their children, and that school choice may not magnify these inequalities.

Further Reading

  • Home-School Study: How Young People’s Home Environments Influence Their Emerging Digital Literacy

    Information on how home environments influence children's use and understanding of technology has implications for how digital literacy is taught in schools and non-school-based programs. Family income, where a computer is placed in the home, how many family members compete for its use, how much leisure young people have to explore the computer, and what sort of technical expertise they can rely on from parents and others close to home are just some factors that shape the experiences young people have with computers.

  • Community Relations: Working With the Public on Big Decisions

    Matt Leighninger of Study Circles Resource Center tells school leaders how to involve parents and other community members in major decision making. This involvement improves public input and support for new district policy. Leighninger gives examples of various participatory strategies borrowed from successful public engagement efforts in other fields.

  • New Schools = New Opportunities for Youth Groups

    This article advocates for “joint-use” arrangements for school buildings that benefit community-based organizations and transform schools into centers for the whole community.

  • Study of Parental After-School Stress (PASS)

    Researchers at the Brandeis Women’s Studies Research Center are studying stress in parents who have concerns about their children’s after-school arrangements. These parents report significantly higher levels of psychological distress as well as more frequent job disruptions. Employers can avoid loss in employee productivity by providing after school program information and referrals to parents of school-aged children. Access to such information in the workplace is linked to lower levels of stress.

Events

  • Third Annual National Inclusive Schools Week on Family-School Linkages

    Recognizing the need to create schools where families are welcomed, respected, and engaged, the National Institute for Urban School Improvement encourages schools to celebrate family involvement this year as part of National Inclusive Schools Week from December 1st through 5th. A celebration kit includes Fostering Effective Family-School Linkages for Inclusive Schools, a guide that provides many ideas for opening your school to families during celebration week and beyond.

Resources for Teachers and Parents

  • Building Partnerships With Latino Immigrant Parents

    The Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence (CREDE) offers ideas for making Latino parents feel more welcome in schools and for developing student assignments that facilitate Latino parental assistance.

  • 10 Tips for Parents Who Choose to Stay Put

    Parent Leadership Associates has produced this tip sheet to address the concerns of parents who choose not to transfer their child out of a low-performing school.

  • Preparing for Parent-Teacher Conferences

    In this press release the Southwest Educational Development Laboratory (SEDL) offers tips to help parents prepare for the parent-teacher conference.

  • Learning Guide on Tutoring and Academic Enrichment

    The first edition of Learning Guide from the Partnership for Learning includes articles on securing tutoring help without breaking the bank, identifying the right tutor to match a child's needs, and what to do if a child has a learning disability.

  • Gaining Ground: Achieving Excellence in High Poverty Schools

    The Summer 2003 issue of Gaining Ground is devoted to parent and community involvement. It includes information on the provisions mandating family and community involvement under the No Child Left Behind Act, suggestions for how states can help districts understand and develop an effective parent/community involvement strategy, a discussion of arts education as a way of building community in high-poverty school districts, and other resources related to family and community involvement.

  • Student-Led Conferences: A Growing Trend

    Many schools are putting a new twist on the parent-teacher conference—students themselves are leading this conversation between parents and teacher. This article explains advantages and disadvantages and important considerations in preparing student-led conferences.

  • American Federation of Teachers Parent Page

    The Parent section of the American Federation of Teachers website includes resources on academic standards, reading, helping your child with homework, and communicating with school staff.

  • Parent Power

    This article in Education Week describes the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership’s three-weekend program for parents.

Other Resources From Harvard Family Research Project

  • The Out-of-School Time Program Evaluation Database

    Harvard Family Research Project's out-of-school time (OST) team has compiled narrative profiles of OST program evaluations into one online database, available in the OST section of the Harvard Family Research Project website. Each profile contains an overview of the OST program or initiative that was evaluated, as well as detailed information about each evaluation report produced about that program. The OST website also offers Out-of-School Time Evaluation Snapshots which are based on analyses of the information in the Out-of-School Time Evaluation Database and explore key research questions about the challenges of conducting OST evaluation.

  • The Evaluation Exchange

    Harvard Family Research Project's evaluation periodical, The Evaluation Exchange, addresses current issues facing program evaluators of all levels, with articles written by the most prominent evaluators in the field. The newly released fall issue focuses on the evolving nature of evaluating community-based initiatives and explores lessons learned during the past decade. Authors discuss critical issues now surfacing in this field, including innovations in community-building evaluation, the role of cultural competency in community-based research and evaluation, and how evaluators and funders can better build on the evaluation and learning approaches that community-based organizations already use to improve their work. You can sign up to receive the print or electronic version of The Evaluation Exchange free of charge.

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

© 2016 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
Published by Harvard Family Research Project