Student achievement improves when parents are involved in their children's education.
Most educators today accept this truth, but they haven't truly embraced it, according to Fay Brown and Valerie Maholmes. Many parental involvement programs remain unfocused, and parents are still a largely untapped resource, they noted, mainly because most educators fail to ask one critical, guiding question: Just what do you want parents to do when they are involved?
Fay Brown
To help ensure thoughtful answers to that question, Brown and Maholmes shared a framework—adapted from James P. Comer's School Development Program—that educators can use to analyze their current programs and create new ones.
Offering Different Levels
Imagine a three-level pyramid that corresponds to typical parental involvement patterns, Maholmes and Brown instructed. At the base of the pyramid is Level 1, which represents 60 percent of the parent population. At this level, Maholmes explained, parents provide broad and general support, and educators are most concerned with determining how to get the vast majority "to take ownership and feel that this is their community." She reminded educators that this level includes parents who can support learning at home—an often-overlooked component of parental involvement.
Valerie Maholmes
At Level 2, the purpose of parental involvement is much more definitive, Maholmes said. "We have parents in the school to promote student learning, development, and achievement." Parents at this level, which reflects 30 percent of the parent population, are involved in daily school affairs and can assist in the administrative office and library or serve as a link to other parents by being a "room parent," for example.
At the third level of participation, which represents the last 10 percent of the parent population, parents are involved in school management. When a "representative group of parents" is included at the decision-making level of the school, they can help educators better meet the learning needs of their diverse student body, Maholmes explained. Parents at this level also suggest activities that can broaden parental participation.
Maholmes and Brown pointed out that these participation levels are not fixed. Educators may find it easier to bring a parent in at Level 1, but a parent, if interested, can certainly move to a different level of involvement.
Maholmes added that the framework also gives educators a tool for analyzing their parental involvement program as a whole. Educators can determine if they have more than enough parents at a broad level (Level 1), or whether they need to intensely focus on getting more parents involved at the daily level (Level 2), for example.
Accentuate the Positive
Maholmes and Brown underscored the importance of honoring all parents' contributions—no matter their level of involvement. They added that it's important for educators to focus on solutions, not on finding fault.
Remember to accentuate the positive, said Maholmes, because "the messages we give to parents about their kids are also the messages we give to them about themselves."
A Golden Nugget
A Golden Nugget
From ASCD's 2003 Teaching and Learning Conference
Promoting Partnership: Ask parents to contribute examples from home that show their child's literacy and that can be included in their child's school portfolio. This reinforces the notion that parents and teachers are equal partners in the child's learning, observed an educator who attended Valerie Maholmes and Fay Brown's session. During parent-teacher conferences, both the parent and teacher can present their examples and talk about what the evidence shows about that child's literacy and learning.