A r c h i v e d  I n f o r m a t i o n

Section 5:
Title I Parent Involvement: Partnerships with Families, Schools, and Communities to Support Learning

What the New Provisions Are

Title I makes family involvement a priority by supporting partnerships between families and schools while encouraging community efforts to improve schools and reinforce the importance of learning. While the antecedent Chapter 1 program recognized that parents are important educators of their children, the new Title I legislation includes three key provisions to strengthen parent involvement: a written parent involvement policy, jointly developed by school districts and parents and by schools and parents; school/parent compacts that identify shared responsibilities for high student performance; and training to build school and parent capacity for involvement, including literacy and parenting education. Support for family involvement in Title I schools can also come through other federal legislation.

Jointly developed Title I policies. Each Title I school will jointly develop with and distribute to parents a written parent involvement policy. In their policies, schools will address how they will involve parents in a timely and organized way in the planning and improvement of Title I-supported activities. Policy involvement includes developing the schoolwide plan, establishing school/parent compacts, and building capacity to support parent involvement. Policies are also to address how schools will provide parents with information on expected student proficiency levels and on the schools' profiles, which present data on academic performance and achievement.

In addition, each school district will formulate jointly with parents a written policy that involves parents in the process of school review and improvement. The district policy is to describe how the agency will strengthen schools' and parents' capacity for parent involvement and coordinate parent involvement under Title I with other programs, such as Even Start. Districts receiving $500,000 or more are to reserve at least one percent of their Title I funds to support parent involvement activities, including family literacy and parent training programs. The district is to evaluate its parent involvement policies annually, with the participation of parents.

Title I school-parent compacts. School-parent compacts are agreements developed between parents and school staff to help children achieve to high standards. The compacts recognize that families and schools need to work together toward mutual goals and that they share responsibilities for each student's performance. Specifically, the compacts are intended to promote:

• Shared responsibility for learning. Schools commit to providing high-quality curriculum and instruction in a supportive learning environment, where teachers are given sustained professional development so that they may teach to high standards, and families are helped to participate in their children's learning. Families are responsible for supporting their children's learning through activities such as monitoring attendance, homework completion, and television viewing.



• Ongoing communication. The school-parent compact is to describe the means by which schools and parents will develop their partnerships. For example, schools are to conduct parent-teacher conferences, provide progress reports to parents, and provide parents with opportunities to observe classes, volunteer in classes, and participate in school decision making. The school-parent compact comprises agreements developed between school staff and parents that outline their shared responsibility to help children achieve to high standards and promote ongoing communication. The legislation encourages schools to reach out to parents by implementing practices that support strong parent participation, such as flexible scheduling of home-school conferences.

Training and assistance to build capacity for involvement. Schools will offer programs to strengthen the school/family partnership by providing materials and education for school staff and parents. Training is often critical to the success of family involvement activities. Assistance to parents can include training in (1) understanding the importance of challenging academic standards and how they can help their children meet them, (2) monitoring their children's progress, or (3) literacy or skills that help parents work with their children. Title I also calls on schools to share information in the child's home language, to the extent possible. Activities to build school capacity--a priority--may support extending the partnership to include community-based organizations and businesses. Teachers, principals, and teacher aides have had little preparation to involve parents in this way with their children's learning.

Related legislation and initiatives. Provisions in various federal laws and national initiatives acknowledge the importance of encouraging family involvement and can reinforce the provisions in Title I. Specifically:

• Congress recognized improving parent involvement as a new national education goal in the Goals 2000 legislation.



• State and local Goals 2000 plans are to be developed with broad-based input from parents and other members of the community. Families and the general public are to participate in key decisions about curriculum, instruction, assessment, and how families can help their children meet high academic standards.



• Goals 2000 Parent Information and Resource Centers are intended to provide information sharing, expert assistance, and direct parenting services that could assist Title I schools.



• Even Start (Title I, Part B) supports family literacy, early childhood education, parenting education, and adult literacy for many low-income families served by Title I.



• The Secretary of Education has created a Family Involvement Partnership for Learning. It is a mission-driven, national coalition of partners including family, education, business, community, and religious organizations committed to promoting policies and practices that increase family involvement.

What the National Assessment of Title I Has Learned

Ample research supports the statement that parents are a child's first and most important teacher. Moreover, research suggests that parents may need help from schools and others to be more effective teachers and supporters for their children (Epstein, 1995; Moles, 1993). Research also suggests that effective schools not only promote parent involvement, but respond to parents' concerns (U.S. Department of Education, 1994). The National Assessment of Title I (NATI) has learned:

• What parents do to participate in their children's education matters more to their child's performance than parent income or education (Walberg, 1984; Stevenson &: Baker, 1987; U.S. Department of Education, 1994). School efforts to help parents have a bigger impact on parents' continued involvement in children's education than whether parents finished high school or not, whether they have one child or five children, whether they are married or not, or whether the family is rich or poor (Dauber & Epstein, 1993). Many parents say they would be willing to spend more time on homework or other learning activities with their children if teachers gave them more guidance (Moles, 1993); and when guided, even parents of middle school grade students respond (Epstein & Salinas, 1991).



• All types of families can help their children learn at challenging academic levels. Studies of individual families show that what the family does-- language development, motivation of children, monitoring homework, limiting TV-- is more important to student success than family income or education (de Kanter, Ginsburg, & Milne, 1986; Henderson & Berla, 1994; Keith & Keith, 1993; Stevenson & Baker, 1987; U.S. Department of Education, 1994; Walberg, 1984).



• Community groups, including community-based organizations, religious organizations, and businesses, can support families and schools in helping the partnership work. Students spend about 90 percent of their waking hours outside of school, so the community, in addition to the school and family, can have a tremendous influence on children's development. Community members and organizations can help provide recreation, expertise, resources and facilitate family-school exchange. Studies show that when community efforts to help families and children are strong the overall life in a community may improve and juvenile delinquency may decline (U.S. Department of Education, 1994).

These findings are keys to the new Title I legislation, which supports a strengthened school/family partnership with community and business involvement. The previous National Assessment of Chapter 1 showed that the program had contributed to more parent involvement, in terms of both an increase in the activities offered and an increase in the percentages of parents involved (Puma, Jones, Rock, & Fernandez, 1993). Between 1985-86 and 1991-92, there was an increase in the percentage of principals who reported that parents were very involved in helping their children with homework. In particular, in schools where at least half of the children were eligible for free or reduced-priced lunch, the percentage of principals reporting very involved parents at least doubled, although it remained lower than in other schools (Millsap, Moss, & Gamse, 1993).

Evaluations show that often parents are less actively involved in situations where their involvement would be particularly beneficial. For example:

• Parents of students in high-poverty schools report fewer educationally relevant resources in the home than other parents, although such children may need even greater reinforcement of learning than their more advantaged peers (Puma et al., 1993). Also, parents who do not have literacy skills or high school diplomas participate less in their children's education than other parents (Puma et al., 1993).



• Family involvement diminishes in middle schools compared with elementary schools, even though middle school students are at a sensitive age when many youth problems begin and critical decisions about coursetaking determine college and job opportunities.

The NATI has found that schools play a role in promoting family involvement:

• Many teachers have had little or no training in how to communicate with and assist families (Radcliffe, Malone, & Nathan, 1994). They want training and generally find such assistance helpful. This training may also help teachers to understand their students' variety of cultural backgrounds and develop their skills in relating instruction to students' cultures. Teachers need to learn how to listen and respond to parent perspectives.



• Studies of low-income families in Even Start have shown parent training to be helpful: children's performance is directly related to the amount of parent training provided (St. Pierre, Swartz, Gamse, Murray, Deck, & Nickel, 1995).



• Technology helps schools reach out to families by making information more accessible at convenient times. Homework hotlines help parents find out about assignments and computers extend learning into the home. However, low-income families have less access to technology than families with higher incomes (U.S. Department of Education, 1994).



• It is important for schools to involve hard-to-reach families and offer support for parents' own education or information needs. Family resource centers-- places in a school where families can go and talk with other families and receive assistance-- have proven useful in getting families and schools to work together (Johnson, 1993).



• Reading at home is an especially critical activity, and one that all families can encourage. One of the most important activities for a child's eventual success in reading is reading aloud to children. Encouraging and assisting families in home reading yields substantial benefits in improved student performance (Sopris West, 1993).

Performance Criteria for the National Assessment of Title I

• Surveys of parents and schools will show that families are becoming increasingly involved in school decisions covered under Title I parent involvement--such as developing schoolwide plans, Title I policy statements, and compacts and deciding how to use Title I funds to strengthen family involvement--and that schools are more open and responsive to their involvement.



• Surveys of parents and school staff will indicate that families are more aware of the level of performance expected of their children and the things that their children need to learn in order to succeed in school.



• Studies of school-parent compacts will indicate that they are addressing academic and communication goals and that they are being used to improve the school/family partnership.



• Surveys of schools and teachers will indicate that training in family involvement activities is increasingly available and helpful in working with families.



• Surveys of schools will indicate that parenting education, family resource centers, and literacy training are increasingly available and helpful in working with and benefiting families in need.

  
  
  

• Surveys of parents will indicate that larger percentages say that schools are more open and responsive to their involvement.



• Surveys of school staff and families will show that families are more actively involved in learning activities in the home and school.



• Preparedness for school, attendance, homework completion, and reading outside of school will increase where parent involvement activities have been strengthened.

If legislative measures are working as intended, key school processes described in the legislation should be put in place and operating effectively. To measure whether Title I compacts, supports for the compacts, and related legislative measures are operating effectively to support family involvement, evaluations will examine the operation of family involvement provisions. Progress will be indicated by these methods:

• The school-parent compact process. Surveys of Title I schools will show that: staff and parent groups are knowledgeable about school-parent compacts; schools and staff are getting the information, resources, and training they need to make compacts work; compacts are integrating family involvement activities across different federal programs and population groups; and school-parent compacts are strengthening family involvement that is, school staff and parents believe that they are achieving the goals of the compact.

__________________        _______________ (signed) Principal       (signed) Teacher

________________________                                    (signed) Parent/Guardian

• Training in parent involvement. Training for staff and families is being provided in those areas of greatest need, and such education is making a difference in areas such as student academic performance, discipline, and school climate.

Plans for Evaluating Progress

Title I evaluations will assess accomplishments in promoting greater family involvement in helping students learn. Evaluations will also assess the effectiveness of particular family involvement provisions in meeting program objectives in order to better identify strengths and weaknesses in school, district, state, and federal policies and practices and help guide efforts to continuously improve family involvement.

A major concern in evaluating family involvement is how to obtain accurate information about the extent to which schools and families are working together in their children's education. Schools and families tend to respond to studies according to expected societal norms, overstating their true degree of involvement. As a consequence, the NATI obtains information from multiple sources.

School and district-level surveys. Linked studies will examine family involvement policies, with a special focus on the compact process. These studies include:

• Periodic surveys of a nationally representative set of schools and districts about their family involvement policies and practices including respondents' initial experiences in carrying out the new Title I requirements. Survey designs will permit comparisons of the extent of family involvement in high- and low- poverty schools, to determine any gaps, identify reasons for the gaps, and examine whether any such gap is closing over time. Survey work will be combined with analysis of sample parent involvement policies and parent/school compacts in subsequent studies. (Initial information will be available by spring 1996).

  Key areas of focus for the surveys include involvement and promising practices. For example, What methods did schools and districts use to gain parent input into policies related to parent involvement? To what extent are parents actually involved in decisions on parent involvement strategies, schoolwide plans, and the funds reserved for parent involvement activities? To what extent is parent involvement improving? Are schools supporting a strengthened school/parent partnership? What practices are most promising in strengthening the school/parent partnership at home and at school? How do these practices differ depending upon school/community context and grade level of students?

  
  
  
• Family involvement questions in the Longitudinal Evaluation of School Change and Performance will chart progress and problems in strengthening family involvement.



• Local school surveys of parent involvement will provide immediate feedback for program administrators on the current state of progress and problems in parent involvement. Such data collections could be used to identify areas of accomplishment and to direct school and community attention to local needs.

State-level surveys. The Council of Chief State School Officers will conduct an analysis of state policies promoting family involvement--to examine how states encourage districts and schools to engage parents in setting policy, train school staff and parents on working together at school and at home, and uphold mutual responsibilities for learning. The intent is to make the compilation of state policies available on-line so that promising policies can be shared across states.

Links to other major national activities. Coordination with other studies on family involvement will reduce the data burden for respondents and provide integrated information from a variety of sources. In the area of parent involvement, Title I evaluations will coordinate with:

• The National Education Goals Panel's annual monitoring and reporting of progress on the new parent involvement goal.



• The National Household Education Survey. Conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics, the survey will involve parents with children between age 3 and twelfth grade and students in grades six through 12. This study will report results in September 1996, data will be available to researchers in January, 1997. This survey will examine the ways in which parents and families are involved with their children's schooling; how family involvement in homework and behavior relates to student achievement and school discipline; rules governing bedtimes, TV viewing, and behavior; and family involvement in reading with the child. Parents will also indicate whether their child's school uses learning compacts or school profiles.
  
  
  
• The University of Michigan's Longitudinal Study of Families, which will collect diary data on how much time children and families spend together.



• A long-term study on families by the National Center for Family Literacy.



• The National Evaluation of the Even Start Family Literacy Program. The Even Start program combines adult education, early childhood education, and parent education to address family literacy. Parent involvement measures are included in the data collected routinely from all Even Start sites and through indepth evaluations.

[Section 4: Flexibility Coupled With Increased Responsibility for Student Performance]

[Section 6: Effective Targeting of Title I Resources]