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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All Publications & Resources WORKING WITH TEACHERS AND FAMILIES DEVELOPMENT PERIODS |
COMPLEMENTARY LEARNING CONNECTIONS
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Re-thinking Family Engagement: Moving Beyond the Program Model Toward Systemic Engagement that Promotes Student Learning
Anna Hinton, Director of Parental Options and Information in the Office of Innovation and Improvement for the U.S. Department of Education, shares her vision for transforming family engagement at the federal, state, and local levels.
Driving Towards Family-Centered Policies and Practices: Parent Partnerships as Key Components of Student Success
Jenny Ocón, Executive Director of Parent Services Project (PSP) in San Rafael, California, describes how her work with PSP supports family engagement at schools and in the community.
Teaching the Teachers: Preparing Educators to Engage Families for Student Achievement
Harvard Family Research Project and the National PTA® have teamed up to bring you the third brief in our ground-breaking series about family engagement policy, highlighting the need for teacher education programs to prepare teachers to better work with families.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Promise Neighborhoods Program
The Working Group submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the Promise Neighborhoods program's proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Extending the Grant Period for the Parental Information and Resource Centers
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the U.S. Department of Education's proposal to extend the grant period for the National Parental Information and Resource Centers (PIRC) program. This extension period would allow the centers to operate through fiscal year 2012. The Working Group recommended that the extension place an emphasis on data collection, research, best practices, and program outcomes that will assist in the development of a strengthened PIRC program.
Breaking New Ground: Data Systems Transform Family Engagement in Education
HFRP and the National PTA® have teamed up for the second issue in our series of ground-breaking policy briefs. Breaking New Ground cites six case studies from across the country that reveal innovative efforts by early childhood programs and school districts to use student data systems to improve family engagement. Each profile illustrates a segment of a data pathway beginning in early childhood and continuing through students' academic careers. The brief also includes a set of policy recommendations to help support the current trends in education that focus on twenty-first century learning and the vital role of technology.
Beyond Random Acts: Family, School, and Community Engagement as an Integral Part of Education Reform
This paper, authored by Harvard Family Research Project, served as the foundation for panelists’ discussions at the National Policy Forum for Family, School, and Community Engagement. Beyond Random Acts provides a research-based framing of family engagement; examines the policy levers that can drive change in promoting systemic family, school, and community engagement; and focuses on data systems as a powerful tool to engage families for twenty-first century student learning. Because education reform will succeed only when all students are prepared for the demands of the twenty-first century, the paper also examines the role of families in transforming low-performing schools.
Family Engagement as a Systemic, Sustained, and Integrated Strategy to Promote Student Achievement
This paper offers an expanded definition of family engagement based on research about children’s learning and the relationships among families, schools, and communities in support of such learning. The topics presented in this paper were originally introduced as commentaries in the August 2009, November 2009, and April 2010 issues of the F.I.N.E. Newsletter.
Taking Leadership, Innovating Change: Profiles in Family, School, and Community Engagement
This new report from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group contains twelve examples of leading innovations in family engagement as an integral and effective strategy in systemic education reform.
Reframing Family Involvement in Education: Supporting Families to Support Educational Equity
This research review, part of the Equity Matters research initiative at the Campaign for Educational Equity at Teachers College, Columbia University, argues that family involvement in education is a powerful but neglected tool to support children’s learning and development. Disadvantaged children are both more likely to benefit from increased family involvement and to come from families who face the greatest barriers to such involvement. To reframe public understanding of the benefits of family involvement in children’s education, this paper lays out a research-based definition and more equitable approach to family involvement and positions it as a key cross-cutting component of broader comprehensive or complementary learning systems.
Commentary from Harvard Family Research Project on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund
HFRP submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the i3 fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. The recommendation included an endorsement of the comments submitted by the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including HFRP’s Heather Weiss, and emphasized the need to direct development and validation grant funding toward promising family and community engagement initiatives, isolate and recognize the added value of parental involvement in interventions, and take a nuanced view of effect size when selecting innovations for funding.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the Investing in Innovation (i3) Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria.The National Working Group’s recommendations provide a framework for the integration of family involvement into how potential recipients of i3 funds are assessed and selected, as well as how initiatives are evaluated.
Family Engagement Policy Resources
We've added a section to our website to inform stakeholders of our policy-related work in family engagement. This work seeks to promote the broader definition of family engagement that stresses shared responsibility and cross-context learning within a cradle-to-career approach to education. Visit our new policy page for more details, including our comments in the Federal Register regarding the U.S. Department of Education’s $4.35 billion Race to the Top Fund competitive grants program.
Commentary from the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group on the Race to the Top Fund
The National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including Harvard Family Research Project’s (HFRP) Heather Weiss, submitted recommendations for the Race to the Top Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. The recommendations provide a framework for elevating and integrating family involvement into how the Race to the Top Funds are disseminated, governed, and evaluated for effectiveness.
Commentary from Harvard Family Research Project on the Race to the Top Fund
Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) submitted recommendations to the National Register Notice regarding the Race to the Top Fund’s proposed priorities, requirements, definitions, and selection criteria. HFRP both endorsed the comments submitted by the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a collaborative of leaders in the family engagement field including HFRP’s Heather Weiss, and asserted that a priority criterion for awarding Race to the Top dollars should focus on the quality and depth of family engagement, especially to achieve the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's goal of turning around struggling schools.
Family Involvement News: August 2009
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up-to-date on what's new in family involvement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, events, and opportunities in the family involvement field.
Seeing is Believing: Promising Practices for How School Districts Promote Family Engagement
We teamed up with the National PTA to bring you this ground-breaking policy brief that examines the role of school districts in promoting family engagement. The brief spotlights how six school districts have used innovative strategies to create and sustain family engagement “systems at work.”
National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group: Recommendations for Federal Policy
This policy brief offers a definition of family, school, and community engagement that builds on the definition in the No Child Left Behind Act (Title IX, section 9101, 32) and is based on research about when and how children learn and the relationships among families, schools, and communities in supporting that learning. We also lay out some of the elements we believe are necessary to enable states, districts, schools, families, and community organizations to develop effective approaches to family engagement from birth to young adulthood.
An Aligned Family Involvement System in Kansas
Jane Groff from the Kansas Parent Information Resource Center talks about how the endorsement of statewide family involvement standards by the Kansas State Board of Education has resulted in the development of a common vision for family involvement across state education systems and agencies.
Redefining Family Engagement in Education
Heather Weiss and Elena Lopez discuss the need to develop a broader definition of family engagement—one which focuses on the multiple contexts in which children grow and learn, from birth through adulthood—in this era of changing federal policy.
The Federal Role in Out-of-School Learning: After-School, Summer Learning, and Family Involvement as Critical Learning Supports
Four decades of research demonstrate that it is necessary to redefine learning—both where and when it takes place—if the country is to achieve the goal of educating all of its children. This report from Harvard Family Research Project (HFRP) makes a research-based case for federal provision of out-of-school complementary learning supports, so that all students gain the skills necessary for success in the 21st century.
From Periphery to Center: A New Vision for Family, School, and Community Partnerships
Written by Harvard Family Research Project's Heather Weiss and Naomi Stephen, this chapter presents a comprehensive, integrated family, school, and community partnership framework that can help level the playing field for disadvantaged children and ensure that they have access to the parental involvement and community engagement practices of their more advantaged peers in order to enhance their learning.
A Model for Statewide Parent Involvement Leadership in Colorado
Tina House of the Colorado Parent Involvement Network for Education discusses a collaborative approach to providing statewide leadership for family engagement.
Strengthen What Happens Outside School to Improve What Happens Inside
This article by Harvard Family Research Project in the April 2009 issue of Phi Delta Kappan offers research-based recommendations for federal education legislation.
Family Involvement News: January 2009
We at Harvard Family Research Project are committed to keeping you up-to-date on what's new in family involvement. View our list of links to current reports, articles, events, and opportunities in the family involvement field.