Setting Priorities for a New Era of Family-School Engagement
Adapted with permission from “A New Era of Family Engagement,” by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Innovation and Improvement, 2010, The Education Innovator, IX(5), pp. 1–4. Copyright 2005 by the U.S. Department of Education. Originally featured in ASCD Express.
Research studies point to the need for many more comprehensive, strategic approaches to bringing parents and families into partnerships with schools for the purpose of increasing student achievement.
According to the National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group, a leadership collaborative that informs the development and implementation of federal policy related to family, school, and community engagement, there is strong research evidence that “parental beliefs, attitudes, values, and childrearing practices, as well as home-school communication, are linked to student success.”
The Harvard Family Research Project, under the direction of its founder and director Heather B. Weiss, convened a group of key stakeholders in parent and family engagement—including the PTA National Office, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and the New York Community Trust—to create the Working Group. The group tasked itself with assessing the quality of available research in order to inform the emerging policy discussions about education reform under the Obama administration.
“There is a skyscraper full of research showing how parent, family, and community engagement is crucial to