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.
A Public Agenda survey (People's Chief Concerns, 1999) claims that 55% of the public consider lack of parent involvement a “major problem” facing public schools. What is your opinion and how does your work address this issue?
Jorge Izquierdo, Superintendent of District 6 in New York City, writes:
I believe that a large number of parents are disenchanted with schools. I've been finding ways to bring them back and show them there is hope.
First, I invite parents to come into schools with me. My district is the largest in Manhattan. Unfortunately, we are a low-performing district with a number of limited English proficient students. The majority of our families are immigrants from the Dominican Republic. To make them more comfortable with schools, I conduct walk-throughs, where every week about 15 parents walk through a building and learn about instructional practices. We have rich conversations about how schools might be different than those they attended. What people also realize after the visit is that we do a good job with limited resources
Second, as schools, we can do better. We haven't done enough because we don't reach out and make our schools family friendly places. When parents visit schools they often don't feel welcome. Schools must be a lot more welcoming, meet parents where they are, and encourage their participation. For example, as a principal I started Café 163. What began as a one-time breakfast to meet parents turned into a weekly breakfast forum, where parents eventually took over the organization of the entire activity. It's also important when we invite parents to meetings that these are organized, consistent, and have follow through. Otherwise, parents get turned off and don't come back.
Finally, I've involved parents in school restructuring. Student flight is one of the biggest challenges facing our district. Historically, the city schools have not been doing well, and middle- and upper-class parents enroll their children in other schools. It is extremely difficult to change schools when middle- and upper-class parents leave because they don't have faith in our schools. We are now seeing an influx of upper/middle-class families in our district and my goal is to bring them in and have them stay. To do this we are converting two middle schools into smaller academies. Parents have been part of this planning process. Parents must be interested, because if they're not, the children won't succeed.
My goal is to educate parents to the degree that they understand good instruction and become able to support our schools and our children. We have to focus our sights on instruction and we must have the entire community involved in doing it. The parents are key.
Jorge Izquierdo
Superintendent of District 6
New York, New York
Kathy Nakagawa from Arizona State University writes:
Although the lack of parent involvement is often listed as a major problem facing public schools, this (mis)conception places both parents and schools between a rock and a hard place. This view suggests that schools cannot improve without parents, but if schools are doing poorly, then parents (not the schools) are the problem. The reality is that both schools and parents need greater support, not just from each other, but also from the surrounding community. For instance, increasingly, urban schools face the challenge of “city migrant” students—those students whose families move numerous times throughout the year from school to school within the same district or between neighboring districts. The reasons for these moves vary from a need for affordable housing to changes in family structure. This constant movement presents a special challenge to building strong family-school relationships. What should schools do to address this challenge?
In our recent article, The “City Migrant” Dilemma: Building Community at High Mobility Schools, my colleagues and I found that many schools with high levels of mobility also provide outreach through counseling, adult education classes, and additional academic support for children. We found that some schools did a great deal to address the needs of city migrant families—for instance creating special classroom support for the children—whereas others viewed transience as a problem that the schools could not control, and so did little to support these families. We also suggest that schools cannot address this challenge alone; improved community development is needed to provide access to resources, such as better housing and job opportunities, that will allow these city migrant families to become more stable.
Kathryn Nakagawa
Assistant Professor
Psychology in Education
Arizona State University College of Education
Tempe, Arizona
www.ed.asu.edu/coe
Reference
Nakagawa, K., Stafford, M. E., Fisher, T. A., & Matthews, L. (2002). The “city migrant” dilemma: Building community at high-mobility urban schools. Urban Educaiton, 37, 96-125.
To view the survey, visit www.publicagenda.org.