Fall, 2001, No. 11 National Network of Partnership Schools
Partnership Activities Help Improve Schools' Math Proficiency Test Scores
Does Neighborhood Matter for Math Achievement?
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.
Does Neighborhood Matter for Math Achievement?
A new study investigated whether the characteristics of neighborhoods and their schools influence the academic success of middle school students. The researchers, Sophia Catsambis* and Andrew Beveridge, combined data from parent and student surveys and mathematics achievement tests in the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 with data on students’ residential locations from the U.S. Census. They conducted simultaneous analysis of the effects of families, schools, and neighborhoods on student math achievement.
High Risk Neighborhoods and Low Math Achievement
Neighborhoods were categorized by characteristics that may pose behavioral and educational risks for students, such as the percent of people living below the poverty level, dropped out of high school, unemployed, in female-headed households, and the median family income. They found that living in “high-risk” neighborhoods and attending high-poverty schools are both directly related to lower levels of students’ mathematics achievement. These relationships persist even after accounting for the social background characteristics of individual students.
Less Parental Involvement
Living in “high-risk” neighborhoods also influences parents’ behaviors. Parents who live in such neighborhoods tend to have lower educational expectations for their children, provide fewer out-of-school learning opportunities for them, and participate less in parent-teacher organizations than do similar parents who live in “low risk” neighborhoods.
Surmounting Disadvantages
The data suggest that, to some degree, parents may overcome neighborhood disadvantages associated with student achievement by frequently communicating with their children, closely monitoring their activities, and providing them with extra learning opportunities. Although more research is needed to fine-tune these analyses, this study points to the importance of including neighborhood characteristics in educational research and in school programs that aim to improve the academic success of disadvantaged students.
From: Catsambis, S. & Beveridge, A. A. (2001). Does Neighborhood Matter? Family, Neighborhood and School Influences on Eighth-Grade Mathematics Achievement” Sociological Focus, 34 (4): 435-457.
*Dr. Catsambis is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships at Johns Hopkins University.
