Type 2 Research Brief

Partnership Activities Help Improve Schools' Math Proficiency Test Scores

Schools in the United States continue to improve their math curricula, instruction, and students’ math skills. This NNPS Focus on Results study extends previous research by delving into schools’ math programs to identify which family and community involvement activities may help improve student achievement in math.

Longitudinal school-level math achievement data were collected from 18 elementary and secondary schools to examine whether the implementation of specific activities to involve families and the community in math helped predict gains in students’ math achievement. Measures included school characteristics, family and community involvement practices, rates of math homework completion and report card grades, and two years of school-level math achievement test results.

Analyses found that, after controlling for the schools’ prior levels of math achievement, some activities for family involvement in math at home and at school predicted higher student performance on standardized math tests.

Encourage Learning at Home

Two practices that encouraged parent-student interactions at home were strongly related to gains in the percentage of students scoring at satisfactory or higher proficiency levels in math:

Assign math homework that involves families, and
Offer lending libraries with math-related materials for families and students to use at home.

Other Connections with Families about Math

Several practices that increased teacher-parent communications about math and the involvement of families in math activities at school were related to gains in the percentage of students scoring satisfactory or higher proficiency levels in math:

Communicate with parents about how to contact the math teacher; conduct parent-teacher conferences; and provide information to parents about students’ math progress between report cards;
Conduct workshops on math skills and school expectations; and
Invite parents to assemblies to celebrate math achievements.
The study suggests that elementary and secondary schools that involve families in students’ math learning in a variety of ways are likely to produce higher student performance on standardized math tests.

From: Sheldon, S. B. & Epstein, J. L. (2001). Focus on math achievement: Effects of family and community involvement. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2001 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Anaheim, CA.