Parental Involvement At Schools: Article Analysis

The writing style was satisfactory. Ursula wrote in an academic voice and stayed true to that throughout her paper.

Yes Freda parental involvement is critical through out the world for any school. According to research family factors plays a major role in teacher’s ability to teach students. Coupled with, principals and teachers agree that what is going on at home impact a student’s propensity to learn. Especially, when some teachers and administers try to work with children in less than ideal family environments, we can only do so much. Particularly, when parents are often not willing to partner with the schools to provide for the children. On a high note the earlier in a child’s educational process parent involvement begins, the more powerful the effects. Also the most effective forms of parent involvement are those that engage parents in working directly

There are many reasons that parents should get involved in their children’s school. Students who have concerned and involved parents tend to get better grades. When a parent asks questions about homework and assignments, supervises to make sure that they get done, and even helps with homework, it is more likely that assignments will be completed and handed in on time. Another factor in grades is attendance. With a low attendance rate, assignments will be missed, and the student will get behind in content as well. Parents who do not get involved in the school might not know that their child is not attending on a regular basis, or even care if their child goes.

The first question asked of the teacher and administrator focus group focused on the meaning of parent involvement to parents. JP, the school counselor, replied, “There is a group of parents who expects their kids to be taken care of 100% in their growth of education and socialization.” CS, a middle school, teacher followed up the response of JP by stating, “Unfortunately, I think a majority of our parents want 100% as far as us (teachers) taking care of everything. A few of our parents don’t have that expectation, but, for the most part, a majority of them do.” The teacher and administrative focus group members contended that parents should be informed and involved, but, parents have the mindset that their responsibility is to get their child to school with their books and homework and that the remainder of the educational process is totally the school’s responsibility.

There must be excellent forms of communication in order to have effective parental involvement. Herndon High School has numerous resources that have been utilized to inform parents regarding their children or used to get parents involved with the school. When teachers want parental involvement, they have the capability of sending progress report via e-mail. Additionally, twice yearly there were “Touch Base”. Touch base was an opportunity for teachers to have mini conferences, no more than three minutes, early in the morning. In additional to using newsletters, e-mail, the telephone, mailing letters and progress reports, the school website’s is a valuable resource and has a wealth of information for parent to be involve with different activities.

Chavkin emphasized the importance of parent’s school involvement among Hispanic and African American families. Documenting her research process Chavkin reported important opinions made by African American and Hispanic parents. In her research, the majority of parents who participated in the study truly believe that the most important key towards student academic success is parent support and involvement. Ultimately, this informative and interesting study represents an important contribution to my research topic by pointing out parent opinions about the idea of parent school involvement, which essentially is the key answer that I want to research and discover.

In an educational environment portrayed by an immense weight on accountability, our nation has been occupied outlining its educational goals to allow us to take part in a global economy. Even in this situation, the notion of family and parent participation in school takes precedence. There are two substantial examples of this. First, in 1994, Congress constituted the Goals 2000: Educate America Act. In composition with Goal Flight, "By the year 2000, every school will promote partnerships that will increase parent involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children" (Sec. 102, 8, A). Some of the aspirations of this goal encompassed the installation of programs to increase parent involvement, encouraging parents in the support of academic excellence of children at home, and shared decision making at school. Second, parents are referred to a few hundred times in various parts of the No Child Left Behind Act (2002), specifically in Section 1118, Title 1. This section of the Act is written explicitly for parent involvement. “More specifically, this section requires that school districts and schools receiving Title I dollars must have a written parent involvement policy and build school capacity to effectively

One of the main strengths Robinson & Harris (2014) point out throughout the book is the fact that they highlight gaps in available literature for example the authors argue that it is unclear within literatures which aspects of parental involvement actually improves achievement. Furthermore a good distinction between

This side of parent involvement is important to understand the parent because if steps are not taken to understand the parent, we create a barrier, which does not allow for full parent involvement. However, if we understand the difficulties and make changes to benefit and support ESL parents then they can have a voice in their student’s education they might not have had. This also gives the parent more control in choosing what they believe is best for their student. I feel the focus of this article was specific to early childhood educators, and the information being brought forward from others’ research lays out significant findings and ways to apply them no matter the grade level being

Prior to 1850, parent involvement was primarily at home because there was no formal American public school education implemented. Parental education included, and still includes, activities related to discipline, basic skills, work skills, ethics, and value inculcation. These educational activities were carried out privately within the family, rather than publicly through the use of public institutions (Berger, 1981). In 1850, there was a progression in public education. The United States leaders of the educational reforms were successful at making a compelling case to the American population of the importance to establish a public school system (“1850-1877: Education: Overview,” 1997). As the public education system changed there was a shift in parent involvement. Many parents felt as if they were loosing control over their children’s education. Therefore, parents were in an uproar, questioning their role in parent involvement within the public school educational system. Not too long after the emergence of the public school educational system, in 1879 the National Congress of Mothers was formed, which is formally known as the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) today. The National PTA is the oldest and largest volunteer association working exclusively on behalf of all children and youth. Although the PTA involves so much more than just parental involvement pertaining to a child’s success in school, there was a big push for parent

Collective research focusing on family-school partnerships provide an extensive examination of parent involvement. Smith et al., (2011) referred to parent involvement as school, family, and community partnerships for the purpose of shared expectations, responsibilities, interests, and correlating influences of family, school, and community. Epstein’s (2008) framework of parent involvement approached parent involvement typologies from an institutional perspective; the framework for this literature review was conducted with a parental perspective that may positively affect academic achievement among students in 6th – 12th grades attending high poverty, rural schools. An explanation of Epstein’s six categories of parent involvement follows:

Parental involvement in education is a vital essential for creating a cooperative environment for the student to thrive and succeed in. When a student knows that he or she is receiving support both inside and outside the school, the chances of that child becoming responsible for and active in their education are more likely. I know that there can be difficulties including parents for many reasons. Such parents may be too busy, uninterested or just feel helpless. However, as an educator, I will still have an obligation to reach out to these parents and assist them.

Over the past years, most studies on the educational success of a child have focused on the factors that are within the control of the child. They are factors that are directly caused by the child himself such as the level of motivation, discipline level, hard work and the company he keeps. Only a few researchers have focused on the role parents play in the determination of the success that children have in academics. Despite their role being obscure in the scholarly work, it is evident that the involvement of parents in a child’s education plays a significant in determining whether a child will succeed or not. While most scholars argue that a child’s education success is dependent on the level of hard work he or she puts in class, recent studies by different scholars point that a parent’s involvement in school plays a significant part in the education success of their children.

Father involvement in schools is associated with the higher likelihood of a student getting mostly A’s. This was true for fathers in biological parent families, for stepfathers, and for fathers heading single-parent families. (Nord) The children have a harder time scoring on tests related to mathematics, reading, critical thinking when no father is present. When fathers are involved in a child 's academics they are 40% less likely to repeat a grade and more likely to enjoy school and be involved in extracurricular activities. (Nord) It has been shown that kids with highly involved fathers have increased mental dexterity, increased empathy, less stereotyped sex role beliefs and greater self discipline (Abramovitch) Research also shows that when children experience high father involvement are more curious and better with problem solving. A fathers involvement seems to foster a childrens confidence to explore the world around them and to solve problems.(Pruett) When talking about dropouts, we see that 71% of them are fatherless. When we look at the total population, 19% of kids drop out of highschool. (Nord) Children from father absent homes are more likely to skip from school, more likely to be excluded from school, more likely to leave school at age 16, and less likely to attain academic and professional qualifications

As the literature is being reviewed research and evidence is showing the importance of parental involvement in every aspect and in every socioeconomic class. Yvonne peril constructs research one program for involvement but first wanted to come up with a cookie cutter definition of what parental involvement was. Through research she realized that this task was very difficult. And as she review literature on parental involvement a conclusion was made that there was no consistent agreement on for across the board of what parental involvement should be defined as. In Parriel’s research she discovered that there are several elements that help us define and come up with a conclusion of what parental involvement encompasses.