The Pros And Cons Of Parental Involvement

Teacher collaboration can support professional development in schools. The importance of teacher collaboration can strengthen school and build teachers’ knowledge. The article discusses the significance of teachers’ social networks, a network of social interactions and personal relationships for teaching and learning as well as educational change. Social networking assists teacher collaboration. Teachers are able to communicate and ask for advice, collaborate on ideas, or as for help. Teachers may also exchange resources or provide opportunities to build teacher

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:

The second is Communication between the Home and School. In order to help families create settings within the home to support their children as students we, the teachers, can provide suitable materials which give information and assistances on how the parents can help at home. Through pamphlets, e-mails, and phone calls teachers can inspire and encourage parents to converse and work with their child. Through our involvement with the families, parents become more aware of their child’s school platform, they interact on a more positive level with their children they are more skilled to reinforce the teacher's objectives in order to achieve better schoolwork. When we give parents information to become more knowledgeable partners with the school, their child sees that their parents and teachers are communicating with one another about their schoolwork, which allows them to become more aware of their parents involvement and abilities. This will open up the opportunity for the child and parents to talk openly about the child’s schoolwork and the decisions the child makes at school.

Over the course of an individual’s life span, one is seen forming relationships with several people in whom they find their presence an important aspect to their life. However, among these relationships, parent-child relationships are the most valuable, but also very complex. These relationships are built from a foundation of interaction starting from the birth of the child to their adulthood. Unfortunately, if this involvement is not present within a child’s life, it can ultimately cause them to feel neglected causing outrageous conflicts, behavior issues and emotional disputes. Parental involvement within a child’s life allows them to gain a sense of security ultimately increasing new learning of the child

Noel, A., Stark, P., Redford, J. (2013). Parent and Family Involvement in Education, From the National Household Education Surveys Program of 2012 (NCES 2013-028), National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch.

learning and development as listening to the parent about their child is important as it will help the

The National Education Goals, adopted in 1990, specified eight goals for educational improvement in the United States. As stated in the National Education Goals, “By the year 2000, every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children” (National Education Goals Panel, 1998). According to the final report, there was no significant change in the level of parent participation in the majority of the states. The No Child Left Behind law established strict provisions for states, school districts, and schools with regard to parental involvement among the parents of disadvantaged students for increasing academic achievement (U.S. Department of Education, 2003). Epstein suggests that schools establish comprehensive school-family partnership programs.

Parents that have spoken out risk upsetting a teacher that will be looking after their child for the rest of the year, many teachers express the opinion that parents are not qualified to help their children as they have not had pedagogy training. Parents need to be allowed to voice opinions and concerns when it comes to their children’s well-being without fear of repercussions. There are numerous ways that parents should become involved in education reform. In New York City, parents withheld their children from participating in standardized testing; proclaiming that too much time was spent on training for the tests and not enough time and faith was given to the teachers to teach according to their best judgement and training. Instead of waiting on politicians to lead the change in education reform parents need to start change themselves on a local level by participating heavily in the schools that their children attend. Getting to know the teachers and administration allows parents to have a voice about concerns and problems that they witness firsthand as well as being active voters for members of the school board. Those that complain that the nation is no longer a competitive learning source should in turn become actively involved in education

As discussed above, the extensive research conducted has demonstrated that parental involvement has positive effects on student achievement (Allen, 2005; Epstein et al., 2002; Mapp & Henderson, 2002). A large portion of the research conducted has been influenced by Dr. Joyce Epstein. Dr. Epstein is the director of the Center for School, Family, and Community

By involve parent in the school life will be a positive influence upon pupils' programs and development. This included help in classrooms and on educational visits, and attendance at meetings to discuss children's progress. Parent involvement in pupils' educational development within the home was also clearly beneficial. As a public health practitioner once we involve parent in our policy making we will have a positive effect upon our children's learning, and practice of good life styles.

Many studies have indicated that parental involvement is important to the success of various educational and intervention programs (Granger, Rivieres-Pigeeon, Sabourin & Forget, 2012; Hastings & Johnson, 2001; Neymotin, 2013; Solish & Perry, 2008). The National Research Council Report (2001) strongly recommends parental involvement in autism interventions. Additionally, in his 1987 study, Lovaas required that parents apply no less than 10 hours per week of the intensive behavioral intervention (IBI) program with their own children. Parents participating in Lovaas’ IBI program are often encouraged to be full members of the therapy team (Lovaas & Buch, 1997). The increased intervention hours that come from parental involvement are supposed to improve the child’s cognitive, language, social, and adaptive skills (Sallows & Graupner, 2005). In addition, parental involvement can help these skills more successfully generalize from the treatment setting to the natural environment (Lovass, 1987).

The President is also trying to make sure parents are more involved. Each state and school district is required to give parents easy-to-read, detailed report cards about schools and school districts, telling them which ones are succeeding and why. Included in the report cards are student achievement data broken out by race, ethnicity, gender, English language proficiency, migrant status, disability status and low-income status, as well as important information about the professional credentials of teachers (U.S. Department of Education, 2003). This makes sure that parents are involved in their child’s education and that they are able to make clear decisions on whether or not they want their child at that specific school.

Teachers need to increase understanding about how, and why, parents construct their involvement in different ways. Parental involvement may also vary because of differences in ethnic and cultural backgrounds between parents and teachers. I believe that supporting parental involvement requires knowledge by school's staff on how to involve parents in their children's education.

More recently, the United States Department of Education, by submitting the 1996 proposal for National Education Goals, addressed the issue of parental involvement. The official U.S. government stood by the research of three decades that “parental participation in schooling improves student learning,” (U.S. Department of Education). Based on government research, family involvement programs don’t always need additional money to be successful, but leaders should stretch their own creativity to expand the programs that encourage community and family support. Parental involvement is found to be beneficial through high school, not stopping after elementary school, and parents that evolve as leaders should be encouraged to continue their role in their child’s education. The most successful parent leaders are found to play four roles in their child’s education: those roles are teacher, supporter, advocate and decision maker. The teacher-role supplements the child’s education at home, the supporter contributes his/her skills to the school, the advocate helps children receive fair treatment at home, and the decision maker participates in joint problem-solving with

The purpose of attempting to improve parental involvement is because research has found parental involvement to be predictive of the students’ commitment and performance in school. “When schools, parents, families, and communities work together to support learning, students tend to earn higher grades, attend school more regularly, stay in school longer, and enroll in higher level programs” (Van Rockel).