Christmas WS's!
Picking up from where we left off yesterday, let’s take a closer look at the report from the Center for Public Education. As we mentioned yesterday, PISA, the international math and reading study from kids in over 50 countries, has been surveying parents and came to the conclusion that parents involved with their children’s learning from an early age show markedly higher scores at the age of 15.
Does an Active Interest in your Child’s School Suffice?
The Center for Public Education looks into this further and asks the question: how do you define that involvement? Does an active interest by parents in their kids’ school, such as attending PTA meetings or school fundraising, rub off on their kids’ academic achievement?
Thinking that over for a minute, consider this. National survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that attending school meetings or events is the leading form of parent participation in schools, followed by school fundraising activities. The Center for Public Education examined the research and found that these types of activities are not beneficial for individual students’ academic performance. That, in fact, creating a partnership between parents and schools focused on academics does have significant impact on student achievement.
That's not rocket science - we've all worked that out for ourselves. Looking at these activities from day to day, though, it gives me pause for thought. Parents do put significant amounts of time into their children’s schools in attending meetings and raising funds. I’m by no means discrediting these activities as they are important. At my daughter’s school our fundraising activities last year ensured our kids have new computers in the computer lab.
What the reports from PISA and the Center for Public Education are indicating, though, is that more effort needs to be put into creating partnerships between school programs and parents to ensure kids continue to learn at home.
Parent/Teacher Partnerships
So, what works? In its report, the Center for Public Education points to a number of examples that prove school programs and teachers that engage families in supporting their kids’ learning at home lead to higher student achievement. You can read more about these parent/teacher involvement examples here.
So, what works best? The Center puts this answer the best: “Effective parent involvement comes when a true partnership exists between schools and families. Creating that partnership, especially around academics, is what works for student achievement.”
Initiate the Parent/Teacher Partnership
As parents we want our children to do well at school and we want to be involved in our children’s education. Sometimes this may mean taking the initiative to create that partnership with our children’s teachers. Recognizing that we as parents also play a role in our kids’ academic achievement is a stepping stone to success. What step will you take next? Do you have some parent/school partnership success stories to share?
