The Paradox of Race in the U.S.
Generic Image (Istockphoto) By Paul L. Thomas, Ed.D. | Originlly Published at The Becoming Radical. April 14, 2014 The paradox of race in the U.S.: In order to become a culture in which race does not matter, race must always matter. Due this coming June, my first […]
Imagining Equity Literacy
By Paul C. Gorski | Originally Published at Teaching Tolerance. April 10, 2014 Cultural competence: I learn about Latino culture so that I can communicate effectively with my Latino students’ families. Cultural proficiency: Acknowledging the tremendous diversity among Latino families, I learn about the cultures, identities and […]
Parental Involvement Is Overrated
“Parent Involvement” can take many directions. Do we teach our children to be autonomous or do we ostensibly “help” them? “Too much is never enough” has become an American tradition. Too much love, too much guidance…are we hurting our children? Researchers have studied this question and ask us to consider our own parent-child relations. Have we relied on conventional wisdom and/or misconceptions? Might it be that…
By Keith Robinson and Angel L. Harris | Originally Published at The New York Times. April 12, 2014
Most people, asked whether parental involvement benefits children academically, would say, “of course it does.” But evidence from our research suggests otherwise. In fact, most forms of parental involvement, like observing a child’s class, contacting a school about a child’s behavior, helping to decide a child’s high school courses, or helping a child with homework, do not improve student achievement. In some cases, they actually hinder it.
Over the past few years, we conducted an extensive study of whether the depth of parental engagement in children’s academic lives improved their test scores and grades. We pursued this question because we noticed that while policy makers were convinced that parental involvement positively affected children’s schooling outcomes, academic studies were much more inconclusive.
Despite this, increasing parental involvement has been one of the focal points of both President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and President Obama’s Race to the Top. Both programs promote parental engagement as one remedy for persistent socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps.
We analyzed longitudinal surveys of American families that spanned three decades (from the 1980s to the 2000s) and obtained demographic information on race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, the academic
