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

New Skills for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement - 1997

V. Recommendations

Teacher education can and should prepare teachers to build partnerships with families and communities. Building the capacity of teacher education programs to create excellence in this new field will involve substantial changes in policy and practice. The research suggests the following recommendations.

1. Develop a national network to support teacher preparation in family involvement.

Findings from teacher education programs indicate a near-total absence of information about creating programs for preparing teachers in family involvement. A clear need exists for an entity that would model development and evaluation, work with professional organizations to develop standards, and disseminate information. This entity could also serve as a repository of innovative teaching materials such as case studies. It would create a "case bank" which keeps an inventory of cases, supports new case development, and helps educators gain access to them. These technical assistance and dissemination functions may be assumed by a consortium of teacher training institutions, professional teacher and school administrator organizations, and parent associations. Such a network of key institutions can spearhead changes that, in turn, create a ripple effect throughout the education system.

Since 1991, the annual Family Involvement in Education conference in Utah, organized by the state Office of Education and the state PTA, has brought together specialists from across the country and over 900 parents, educators, and community and business representatives to assess and discuss options for teacher education in family involvement (Utah Center for Families in Education).

2. Evaluate the experiences and outcomes of preparing teachers to work with families.

More research is needed on effective practices for preparing teachers to work with families and communities. Research is needed to examine the effects of teacher preparation on teachers' practices, relationships between teachers and families, and parents' perceptions of their relationships with teachers. Ultimately, evaluation must consider how teacher and parent outcomes of teacher preparation are tied to student outcomes. How does comprehensive teacher preparation in family involvement influence the types of family involvement activities that, in turn, contribute to academic and behavioral outcomes for children? Only when such information is gathered and shared will it be possible to bring about change in a meaningful way. Overall efforts should be made at the school and district levels to assess and evaluate data, including teacher and other school personnel practices and self-assessments. For example, the development of tools for teacher self-assessment could uncover outcomes of their work and improve their practice. Self-assessment tools could be developed by schools and incorporated into school surveys and data collections.

An evaluation of the Parent Education Model at the University of Houston at Clear Lake showed that both teacher and parent perspectives on family involvement improved after a family involvement training experience (Bermudez & Padron, 1988).

3. Strengthen state policy guidelines for teacher preparation in family involvement.

States currently mention family involvement in certification requirements only in general terms. A clear and comprehensive definition of family involvement can guide teacher education programs, while still allowing them flexibility in how, where, and when to teach family involvement.

Early childhood teacher certification requirements in California specify that early education work must include "an environment which encourages cooperation and collaboration on the part of the children, educators, family, and community" and "an understanding of changing family patterns and their societal implications."

4. Make training available to elementary, middle, and high school teachers.

Results of this study demonstrate that early childhood educators receive more preservice training than elementary, middle, and high school teachers. This coincides with findings that family involvement in schools declines dramatically with each passing grade, especially in the middle grades and in high school (e.g., Epstein, 1992; Epstein, 1986; Stevenson & Baker, 1987). This is unfortunate, particularly since family involvement continues to have a positive impact on student achievement at elementary (Epstein, 1987; Epstein, 1991) and secondary levels (Keith, Reimers, Fehramm, Pottebaum, & Aubey, 1986, in Bempechat, 1990). Across the board -- in certification, teacher education programs, and schools -- family involvement declines as grade levels increase. State departments of education and teacher education programs should consider providing more training in this area for all preservice teachers.

Family involvement training at the Parent Power Project at California State University, Fresno, moves beyond an early childhood or elementary education focus by selecting students from a variety of backgrounds and fields, including elementary and secondary education, special education, counseling, and administration (Evans-Schilling, 1996).

5. Improve the effectiveness of training through collaboration across subspecialties and disciplines.

Collaboration is a promising strategy that can be used to improve the quality and quantity of family involvement training through shared information, resources, and activities. Reform efforts at state and university levels should include collaborations across teaching subspecialties, such as early childhood and special education, and collaboration with other professional schools, such as schools of social work and public health.

Certain teacher education subspecialties may be a rich source of information for other teacher education programs that wish to improve family involvement training. For example, early childhood programs emphasize family involvement training more than elementary or secondary programs. Also, special education may already have successful programs and strategies for teaching about family involvement.

Collaboration with fields of health and social services is considered an effective approach to preparing teachers for their expanded roles in family involvement (Bucci & Reitzammer, 1992). Faculty in social work, home economics, and other departments who are knowledgeable about family related issues can help with planning teacher education curriculum. This type of collaboration also addresses the challenge of training in small-scale education departments with few faculty to organize family involvement training activities.

At the University of Washington in Seattle, the College of Education and the graduate schools of Nursing, Public Affairs, Public Health and Community Medicine, and Social Work have formed the Training for Interprofessional Collaboration Project to prepare students -- including prospective teachers -- for integrated, family- and community-centered human services.

6. Integrate training throughout teacher preparation curriculum rather than treating it as an isolated component.

Teacher education programs fault state departments of education for requiring too much of them, while restricting the maximum number of course units allowed. The overload of demands mentioned by teacher education programs is similar to the overload of responsibilities experienced by many teachers, who find their attempts to involve parents hindered by other teaching demands (Cohen & Ooms, 1993; Education Commission of States, 1988, cited in The New Futures Institute, 1989, p.16). Because of these demands, family involvement and family involvement training are often viewed as low priority issues in public schools and in university teaching programs, regardless of the potential benefits (Krasnow, 1990). One way to overcome the state limitations on coursework is to integrate the family involvement theme throughout the curricula, rather than adding additional courses.

At Trinity College in Burlington, Vermont, family involvement is addressed throughout coursework and field experiences rather than in a single isolated course. In the early childhood program, a family involvement component is part of seven required courses, an optional course, and student teaching and other field experiences.

7. Espouse family involvement as a priority among professional organizations.

Teacher education programs are challenged by resistant attitudes from faculty members, school administrators, and teachers. Strategies to effect attitudinal change will involve multiple, reinforcing efforts. An absence of pressure from external groups, such as professional organizations, is a common barrier to increasing family involvement training in teacher education programs. Professional organizations, such as the National Parent Teacher Association and the American Association of College Teacher Educators, play a critical role in signaling priority areas, establishing national standards, and taking the lead in developing innovative training models.

The National Parent Teacher Association (1997) stresses family involvement as an organizational goal, as evidenced by its recent set of national standards for parent/family involvement programs. More than 30 other organizations, including the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the American Federation of Teachers, have agreed to uphold these standards.

8. Sustain teachers' knowledge, skills, and positive attitudes toward families through inservice training.

Inservice training for teachers and administrators also deserves support. In order to sustain preservice efforts, professional development opportunities for teachers must be ongoing. Inservice training expands what has been learned at the preservice level so that teachers can adapt and maintain their skills. It also provides a core of cooperating teachers to model good relationships with families for prospective teachers.

The induction year in particular, may be an important target point for teaching family involvement. Beginning teachers in Houston and Williamson's study (1990) felt unprepared to encourage family involvement; this lack of preparation in family involvement may add to the overall negative attitudes of first-year teachers (Swick & McKnight, 1989).

Supporters of teacher training for family involvement need to emphasize the benefits of family partnerships for schools and teachers. Teachers, who are often overworked and face many unrealistic demands, need to know how family involvement can benefit rather than burden them. Teaching is more rewarding and successful when teachers have mutually supportive relationships with families and communities. This must be conveyed in any training effort.

At the Funds of Knowledge Project at the University of Arizona in Tucson, inservice teachers are trained as ethnographers. Teachers visit their students' homes to investigate the family life and culture of their students, and later incorporate this knowledge into the classroom curriculum.

9. Move beyond classroom-based teaching methods by offering teachers direct field experiences working with families.

The survey of teacher education programs shows that family involvement training is rarely interactive, depending mostly on lectures, readings, and other traditional teaching methods. Experiential methods enable students to integrate theory and practice. The direct experience of working with families and communities builds student skills, increases knowledge gained from practice, and helps promote positive attitudes between students and families. Ideally, teacher education programs should offer field experiences that include (1) assignments or discussions that allow prospective teachers to process their experience and consider how it will influence their future work with families; (2) a close link to university coursework and theory on family involvement; and (3) a knowledgeable and supportive cooperating teacher who models good skills in working with families.

School-university collaborations can help bridge the gap between theory and practice. School personnel can collaborate with teacher education programs to reshape teacher education curriculum so that teachers are better prepared to meet the changing needs of students and families.

At the Rural Special Education Project at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, prospective teachers in special education receive direct experience working with families and communities through cultural immersion: they live and student teach on a Navajo reservation for one academic year.
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[IV. Promising Methods for Teacher Preparation] [Table of Contents] [Appendix]