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One challenge for many urban elementary principals is getting African American parents involved in their children's education. During the International Successful School Leadership Project (ISSP) on principals who improved the academic achievement of children in challenging schools, two predominantly African American urban elementary schools were found that had high minority parent involvement. The purpose of this study was to learn what made their parents differ from the minority parents discussed in the literature. A case study format was chosen with a purposeful selection of 33 interviewees. Forty-six additional transcriptions from previous studies were also utilized as data. Data was collected through interviews, observations and documentation. Constant comparison was used to analyze data. It was learned that safety, teaching efficacy, social and cultural capital impact upon minority parents involvement. This study is significant because it closes a gap in the literature by demonstrating that teaching efficacy does affect minority parent involvement. It also closes a gap in the literature by introducing a parent-centered parent involvement model that is sensitive to the societal demands of minority and low-income parents.
This study explores the various ways in which parental involvement can help to increase student academic success. More specifically, this analysis is based on the notions that: 1) parent involvement in inner city schools present unique challenges that are different from the traditional middle class perspective; 2) there is value in a cooperative approach between parents, teachers, and administrators that places the student at the center of each major discussion and decision; and 3) illustrates that parental involvement is a real perspective and not just rhetorical jargon. Although the focus of this book is in increasing parent involvement in inner city schools, readers must be mindful that the ultimate objective for this work and others like it is the successful educating of all children, so that they graduate from high school, and move into higher education, or into the workforce. Parent involvement by itself will not ensure academic success of children, but, combined with many strategies, including a clear understanding of the differences between an inner city school environment and a middle class school setting, effective teaching, sound and relevant curricula, safe and secure learning environment, and visionary leadership, children attending inner city schools can be just as effective as those in middle class school settings.
"Professor Winters, while challenging stereotypes about the capacity of the poor to change and grow, certainly does not gloss over the major barriers. . . .Winters' book is a testament to the strength, the willpower, and the indomitable courage of these African-American women, who by participating actively to improve their children's education, stretched themselves to achieve new goals. . . ". -- Jewelle Taylor Gibbs, University of California, Berkeley; Author, Young, Black and Male in America.
"Empirical evidence suggests that parent involvement is promotive of positive educational outcomes for students. However, scholarship exploring parent involvement for African American parents with students attending Title I schools is limited. To address this limitation in the literature, this study uses Participatory Action Research as a methodological approach to explore this topic. The purpose of this study is to give voice to African American parents with students attending a Title I middle school and to engage them in parent to parent and parent to educator/community leader collaboration to increase parent advocacy and to establish effective home-school-community partnerships. During this study, seven parents of varying social classes, educational levels and family structures representing seven schools and two school districts participated in individual and focus group interviews. They also participated in Parent Professional Learning Community meetings which allowed them to become co-constructors of knowledge about Title I schools and parent involvement. At the end of the Parent Professional Learning Community meetings, parents presented their findings to a group of educators, parents, and community/business leaders. As a result of participating in this study, parents were inspired to seek ways to form collaborative relationships with other parents to increase social networks and to establish support systems. They were also motivated to seek additional ways to advocate for their children. Program evaluation data in the form of surveys also indicated that because of the presentation, educators and community/ business leaders wanted to continue the critical discourse on African American parent involvement and they also desired to find more ways to establish authentic home-school-community partnerships to meet the needs of parents in Title I schools."--Abstract from author supplied metadata.
Describes how some schools and their communities have overcome key barriers -- finding the time, increasing their information about each other, bridging school-family differences, improving schools, and tapping external supports to strengthen school-family partnerships. Successful partnerships require the sustained mutual collaboration and support of school staffs and families at home and at school. Business or community groups can also help schools and families to work together. This Book is based on case studies of 20 successful education programs around the country. They include elementary and secondary schools and districtwide programs.
These are turbulent times. We live in a climate of vigorous testing and memorization, so how can we both engage and challenge our children to learn and become thinking citizens in our society? In her invaluable new book, Selma Wassermann takes a step forward from Louis Raths seminal work and gives us some truly helpful answers to this modern dilemma. Using new data from her extensive field work, Wassermann (a co-author of Teaching for Thinking, Second Edition) provides a wealth of innovative classroom strategies that will enable and empower students to grasp the big ideas across virtually all curriculum areas and apply this knowledge to problem solving.
Improving Schools for African American Students is designed to provide educational leaders with a better understanding of how to recognize the diversity of strengths that Black students bring with them to school and how to use these strengths to improve achievement. The articles contained in this book discuss generic education issues such as policy reform, the importance of high quality teaching, and the improvement of schools from the perspective of the academic achievement of African American students. Part I explores institutional racism in the context of America's public schools and provides suggestions for educational leaders to eliminate harmful policies and practices within educational institutions and settings. Part II discusses the kinds of institutional and instructional changes that are needed to support successful schooling of African American children and youth. Part III focuses on the challenges presented to African American students by the current high stakes testing environment that surrounds standards, assessment, and accountability. A review of the literature on schools that have succeeded in improving achievement for African American students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels with districts moving towards narrowing the achievement gap is included. This text examines a wide variety of policies, programs, practices, and research that will provide valuable insight. The emphasis throughout the book is on the ability of educators to successfully restructure their schools, offer high quality teaching and learning standards for African American students and to make the kinds of changes that will result in high achievement for all students.
One of the main interests in this book focuses on how to persuade parents to get engaged in their childs education. Many authors have studied this evidence that shows this to be an excellent opportunity, for a parent to visit the classroom teacher... The more involved parents are the more they help the academic achievements of their child. This book gives the most suggestions of how to get parents interested in spending time in their childs school and classroom. Also it shows results of how to work with parents and to keep their interest in the schools. My interpretation of these methods stated in my book is the best approach to increase parent involvement and be successful. The Parent Community School Connections Committee was an important part of decreasing the educational gap between students.
The literature on reform and restructuring often calls for increasing parents' participation as a way to maximize schools' effectiveness. This book contains the real, down-to-earth skills and tips you need to turn parents into active, sharing participants in their children's education. Batey provides you with step-by-step guidelines for getting parents involved in your school and your classrooms. You'll learn proven techniques that encourage participation by all, including the "hard-to-reach" parents. Written by a parent who's been there, this new workbook gives you outlines for use by school professionals or parents, sample volunteer forms, sample donation letters, parent and staff surveys, teacher improvement plans for parental involvement, a "wish list" request form and more! If you want to motivate parents to become working partners at your school, this book is for you.
Schools that are most successful in engaging parents and other family members in support of their children's learning look beyond traditional definitions of parent involvement--parent teacher organizations or signing report cards--to a broader conception of supporting families in activities outside of school that can encourage their children's' learning. This idea book is intended to assist educators, parents, and policy makers as they develop school-family partnerships, identifying and describing successful strategies used by 20 local Title I programs. Following an executive summary, the book notes resources for involving families in education, includes research supporting such partnerships, and describes how Title I encourages partnerships. Next, the book describes successful local approaches to family involvement in education, organized around strategies for overcoming common barriers to family involvement, including: (1) overcoming time and resource constraints; (2) providing information and training to parents and school staff; (3) restructuring schools to support family involvement; (4) bridging school-family differences; and (5) tapping external supports for partnerships. Finally, the book presents conclusions about establishing and sustaining partnerships, noting that at the same time that successful partnerships share accountability, specific stakeholders must assume individual responsibility, and that those schools that succeed in involving large numbers of parents invest energy in finding solutions for problems, not excuses. Four appendices present profiles of 10 successful partnerships, descriptions in table format of 20 successful local approaches, contact information for profiled partnership programs, and resources for building successful partnerships. Contains 13 references. (HTH)