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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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The universal language of data can overcome obstacles that may result when language acts as a barrier for parents. This EdSource article reports on data-driven discussions of individual students’ growth among non-English-speaking mothers from Burma at Garfield Elementary School in Oakland, California. Visual representations of data, such as bar graphs, are utilized to communicate children’s progress on math and reading scores, enabling parents to see the results at a glance.

Meetings with parents are typically grouped by grade level and augment traditional parent-teacher conferences. Parents receive a folder with their child’s data and learn how to understand the data in relation to the entire class. Parents also have an opportunity to set academic goals for their child. 

In California, where family engagement is one of eight state educational priorities, families are encouraged to be involved in school budget and expenditure decisions. Harvard Family Research Project’s Heather B. Weiss underscores the importance of family engagement and places particular emphasis on sharing information about children’s progress anchored by the core ideas of Mindset, a book by Stanford researcher Carol Dweck. Among the book’s recommendations is promoting the view that intelligence is not fixed at birth, but rather a trait that can be developed through learning.

Read To reach parents, schools try universal language of data on the EdSource website.

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Published by Harvard Family Research Project