If family involvement is important for student success, as decades of studies indicate, then we must address a harder, but more difficult question: How can more families – indeed, all families – become involved in their children’s education in ways that contribute to student success? This question underlies NNPS’s efforts to help states, districts, schools, and organizations “think new” about developing excellent partnership programs that contribute to student achievement, motivation, behavior, and other indicators of success in school.
A new chapter by Epstein and Sheldon (2006) discusses seven principles that have emerged from our and others’ research. These principles should help researchers apply more rigorous methods to study partnerships, and help educators, parents, and community partners work better together to support student success.
School, family, and community partnerships is a better term than parental involvement to recognize that parents, educators, and others in the community share responsibility for students’ learning and development. The theory of “overlapping spheres of influence” (Epstein, 2001) improves our depiction of how home, school, and community affect children’s education and development.
School, family, and community partnerships is a multidimensional concept. A framework of six types of involvement guides the development of comprehensive partnership programs (Epstein et al., 2002). Each type of involvement raises key challenges that must be solved to reach all families and produce positive results.
A planned program of school, family, and community partnerships is an essential component of school and classroom organization. Studies need to include measures of schools’ actions to implement partnership programs and activities to involve all parents. NNPS uses an Action Team for Partnerships and a written One-Year Action Plan for Partnerships linked to goals in the school improvement plan to ensure an organized approach to program development. In policy and practice, this links family and community involvement directly to the school improvement planning process.
Programs of school, family, and community partnerships require multi-level leadership. Districts and states have leadership roles to play in guiding schools to strengthen and sustain programs of family and community involvement. In NNPS, district leaders for partnerships are required to guide schools to improve their programs; state leaders provide resources and training in many ways.
Programs of school, family, and community partnerships must focus on increasing student learning and development. When plans for partnerships are linked to specific school improvement goals, family and community involvement can measurably affect student achievement and other outcomes. NNPS research stresses longitudinal measures of program implementation, interim outcomes (e.g., parents’ responses), and results for students.
All programs of school, family, and community partnerships are about equity. The sixth principle – equity – is pivotal for developing and sustaining partnership programs that provide equal opportunities for all families to become involved in their children’s education. Researchers must conduct studies that go beyond documenting inequities to identify practices that promote greater equity in the involvement of diverse families and greater equality of effects for students.
Methods of research on school, family, and community partnerships must continue to improve. It is important for new studies to attack challenging measurement issues, such as isolating the effects of family and community involvement on student outcomes over time.
All seven principles must guide new research and programs of school, family, and community partnerships. By thinking in new ways about how to plan, implement, evaluate, and continuously improve leadership and programs of school, family, and community partnerships, researchers will increase knowledge about partnerships and educators will improve policy and practice.
From: Epstein, J. L., & Sheldon, S. B. (2006). Moving forward: Ideas for research on school, family, and community partnerships. Pp. 117-138, in C. F. Conrad & R. Serlin (Eds.). SAGE handbook for research in education Engaging ideas and enriching inquiry. Thousand Oaks, C.A.: Sage Publications.
Taking a Challenge92.6Percentage of school ATPs that reported working to improve communications with all families, including those who do not speak English at home. 7.4% reported not working on this challenge yet From NNPS 2005 UPDATE. |