Why invest in family engagement and complementary learning to close the achievement gap

1
Why invest in family engagementand complementary
learning to close the achievement gap?

• Heather Weiss
• Harvard Family Research Project
• www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp

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MNAFEE

• April 21, 2009
• St. Cloud, Minn.

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The achievement gap

• Nearly a third of Americas children are left
  behind because they do not have access to
  non-school learning supports including family
  involvement, after school and summer programs.
  Inequitable non-school supports contribute
  substantially to achievement gaps.

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Inequitable school readiness and success the
argument for family involvement

• One third of the black-white achievement gap is
  explained by differences in parenting practices
  (NICHD Study of Early Care and Youth Development,
  2007)

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An opportune time for family involvement?

• Schools alone cant do it,
• What can?

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Were living in a 21st-century knowledge
economy, but our schools, our homes, and our
culture are still based around 20th century
expectationsPresident Obama,American Library
Assoc. 2005
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The new interest in family engagement and
non-school supports

• NCLB, accountability and growing understanding of
  the importance of non-school supports for
  learningSCHOOLS CANNOT DO IT ALONE
• Growing knowledge base supporting the benefits of
  parenting support and family, school and
  community engagement in learning
• New family involvement advocates (Pre-K Now and
  NAEYC and School administrators)
• New efforts to bring people together to build
  systemic, comprehensive and continuous
  community-based family, school and community
  engagement from birth through high school and
  beyond

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New Leadership for Family Engagement

• There is no policy or program that can
  substitute for a parent who is deeply involved in
  their childs education from day onewho is
  willing to turn off the TV, put away the video
  games, and read to their child, or help with
  homework, or attend those parent-teacher
  conferences. President Obama, NEA 2007

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Complementary LearningPositioning family
engagement

• Complementary learning is systematic and
  comprehensive strategy intentionally integrating
  school and an array of evidence-based non-school
  learning supports across developmental stages to
  insure all children have the skills they need to
  succeed. It assumes there is no one program or
  magic bullet, including family engagement, that
  will close the achievement gap.

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A New Vision for Family Engagement in
Complementary Learning

• Complementary learning systems create a seamless
  pathway from birth through college that links and
  aligns effective schools, early childhood
  programs, parent support and education,
  out-of-school and youth programs and activities,
  health and safety net services and other
  community institutions.
• THE PATHWAY BEGINS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD WITH
  PARENTING EDUCATION AND SUPPORT, INVOLVEMENT IN
  EARLY CHILDHOOD PROGRAMS, AND SUPPORT FOR THE
  TRANSITION TO SCHOOL
• FAMILES ARE CRITICAL PARTNERS ALONG THE WHOLE
  PATHWAY AND EARLY CHILDHOOD SYSTEMS PRIME PARENTS
  FOR THEIR CONTINUOUS ROLE FROM CRADLE TO CAREER

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Family Engagement Within a Complementary Learning
Framework

• From birth through high school and beyondcradle
  to career
• Cuts across and reinforces learning in multiple
  settings
• Centers on a sense of shared responsibility in
  which schools and other community agencies commit
  to reaching out to engage families and families
  commit to active support for learning
• Provides support at key transition points

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The goal

• Raising the bar to sustained family engagement
  from cradle to career and putting the necessary
  pieces in place for this in policy, practice and
  evaluation over the next five to ten years
• Aligning definitions, standards and indicators,
  accountability, professional development and
  training, and policies and services to enable
  this

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We have an unprecedented opportunity to move from
random acts of parent involvement to a vision
for a strategic, comprehensive and continuous
system of family, school and community
partnerships.

• .

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• Family, School and Community Engagement Toward A
  Shared and Research-based Definition
• The proposed definition reflects the fact that
  families play significant roles in supporting
  their childrens learning, guiding their children
  through a complex school system, and as strong
  advocates for their children and for effective
  early childhood, school, afterschool and other
  learning supports.

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Family engagement is a shared responsibility in
which schools and other community agencies and
organizations are committed to reaching out to
families in meaningful ways and families are
committed to supporting their childrens learning
and development.
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Family engagement is continuous across a childs
life from early parenting education and support
to early care and education and involvement in
school, afterschool and summer learning, to
support for college preparation and entry
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Family engagement cuts across, reinforces and
leverages learning in the multiple settings
where children learn
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Universal Starting Assumption for Family
Engagement

• All families want what is best for their
  children. Early childhood family engagement
  helps create the demand parents that children,
  schools and communities need.

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What are supply and demand parents?Rudy Crew,
former Supt. Miami-Dade Public Schools, Only
Connect The Way to Save Our Schools
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Sometimes immigrants, very often poor and
powerless and easily abused, supply parents often
feel like outsiders in the very schools that are
supposed to be serving them, no one is letting
them into the knowledge core of the system, the
things you need to know to make the school work
for you and theyre right.
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Economically and Otherwise Disadvantaged Parents

• Research shows they are less likely to be engaged
• Lack social, cultural capital and polity capital
• Face barriers imposed by poverty for nurturant
  parenting, restricting work demands and lack of
  resources

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Society has not equally prepared all segments of
the populationEd Gordon, Supplementary
Education, 2004

• Significantly impacts their ability to access
  necessary resources and relevant opportunities
  for their children
• Requires society to provide supports enabling
  engagement so the children most in need of and
  benefitting from family engagement have access to
  it

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What does research tell us that demand parents
do, especially when schools and communities
support their involvement in their childrens
learning and development?
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Demand parents demand things from their schools
because they understand that they are indeed owed
something and that it is their responsibility to
get it for their children. They demand things
from their children and from themselves.
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The research-based case for family engagement
What is the evidence that systematic family
engagement strategies and programs improve
academic performance and support development?

• Short answer there is strong developmental
  evidence that systematic family engagement
  increases academic success and supports positive
  child development.
• IT IS CRITICALLY IMPORTANT TO USE WHAT WE KNOW
  TO SHAPE EFFECTIVE INTERVENTIONS AND TO CONTINUE
  TO BUILD THE KNOWLEDGE BASE FOR FAMILY ENGAGEMENT

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The three key areas of family engagement from
birth through high school a research-based
framework to guide development of effective
family engagement pathways

• Parenting responsiveness and emotional support,
  cognitive stimulation, academic socialization and
  the attitudes, values, interactions and
  practices of child rearing that support learning
• Home-School-Learning Resource relationships
  formal and informal connections, two-way
  communications, and partnerships with the childs
  school, teachers, afterschool staff and staff of
  other community learning supports
• Shared parent-school and afterschool
  responsibility for the childs learning and
  educationparent emphasis on learning and school
  outreach to engage parents.

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What matters in early childhood and should guide
system development

• Support for parenting Nurturing, warm and
  responsive parent-child relationship, language
  and literacy practices and everyday support for
  learning
• Support and outreach for involvement with early
  childhood education and the transition to school
  parent-teacher contact and regular communication,
  participation in conferences and events,
  volunteering opportunities, building the
  transition bridge for children and families
• Support for shared responsibility for learning
  outreach to build family engagement and a
  shared sense of responsibility thru the childs
  school career

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What matters in elementary school to guide
effective family engagement at school and in the
community?

• Support for parenting Parent-child communication
  and support for learning, homework guidance,
  regular routines (meals, television), tracking
  school performance, high expectations for school
  success, and support for afterschool learning
  opportunities
• Support for continued involvement with school and
  other learning supports Regular communication
  with the teacher, attendance at conferences and
  school events, and classroom and school council
  involvement
• Shared responsibility for learning school
  outreach and information to engage families in
  support of the childs learning and development
  ongoing, bidirectional and focused communication
  highlighting successes as well as areas for
  improvement continued solicitation of parents
  ideas for involvement attention to parent and
  child in transition to middle school

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What matters in high school to guide effective
family engagement strategy?

• Parenting Nurturant parenting and open
  communication, high educational expectations,
  behavior monitoring, guidance on post secondary
  options, access to non-school learning
  opportunities
• Involvement with school and other learning
  resources including afterschool two-way
  communication, participation in conferences and
  attendance at school and after school events and
  support for family involvement in pathways to
  post secondary education
• Responsibility for learning continued efforts to
  engage parents and support for age-appropriate
  family involvement, attention to family and youth
  transition to high school

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The importance of engagement continuity across
systems for early school success

• Sending or phoning information about kindergarten
  to parents
• Parents and children visit the classroom and meet
  teacher and others at school
• Teachers visit families at home
• Parents attend orientation to learn about
  academic and social expectations and how parents
  can help at home and school

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Families matter for a range of social and
academic outcomes

• Children with involved families
• Have enhanced early and elementary literacy
• Show greater school readiness
• Earn higher grades and test scores
• Enroll in higher-level programs
• Are promoted and earn credits
• Adapt well to school and attend regularly
• Have better social skills and behavior
• Graduate and go on to higher education

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What is the evidence that you can enable all
parents to become demand parents and thereby
support learning and development?
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Mercifully short answer

• Go to the hfrp website for the evidence base and
  references and referrals to other sources

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• There are a growing number of evaluations of
  family involvement programs that demonstrate
  gains in childrens learning and development

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ECFE Evaluations Support Continuous Improvement
and Pathways (Mueller,2003)

• Former ECFE participants had significantly higher
  scores on involvement at home and school for
  kindergarten and third grade respondents and
  higher subscores on key areas of engagement with
  schools
• ECFE is building the family involvement pathway
  into school and is a resource for sustained
  family, school and community engagement

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ECFE continued

• Minn. State data that 50 of children are not
  ready for kindergarten (2002) but 97 of parents
  report they are in 2003 ECFE survey The
  challenge is to determine how ECFE and districts
  foster SUSTAINED trusting relationships with
  parents to promote readiness, sustained
  engagement and school success

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Lessons Learned from family engagement research
and evaluation

• Ongoing two-way communication and partnership on
  behalf of the child
• Builds from family strengths and respects and
  benefits from racial, cultural and other forms of
  diversity
• Support for learning activities at home, at
  school and in the community
• Access to family supports and safety net programs
• Staff trained in family engagement

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Co-construction with Families

• Respond to families interests and needs
• Engage in dialogue with families
• Build on family values and funds of knowledge
• Train and involve families in school leadership
  and council membership

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Why are there not more systematic efforts to
build family involvement pathways to support
childrens learning and development at home, at
school, and in the community?
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The National to Local Barriers to Family,School
and Community Engagement Pathways

• Lack of public understanding and belief it will
  make a difference despite the research
• Power, control and turf issues, especially in an
  economic downturn
• Siloed funding and advocacy preventing systemic
  approaches
• Lack of infrastructure training, technical
  assistance and professional development
• Lack of Monitoring and Assessment

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A new national and state strategy supporting
community-based work

• Strategic and united advocacy and communication
  supporting a shared definition and systematic
  family involvement pathways
• Advocacy for the safety net and other supports
  necessary for economically and otherwise
  disadvantaged family engagement
• Integrated national and state infrastructure
  support training, technical assistance,
  organizational capacity building, including the
  PIRCs
• Development of cross cutting family involvement
  standards and indicators tied to accountability
• Performance monitoring and evaluation with an
  emphasis on learning and continuous improvement
• Professional development and parent leadership
  training
• Funding and assessing innovative community
  efforts to build family involvement pathways
• Building a research and evaluation agenda and
  attaining the funding to implement it and use the
  results for practice and policy development

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MNAFEE GOALS SUPPORT SYSTEM BUILDING AND ALIGNMENT

• Organizational sustainability to be at the table
• Advocacy and the legislative agenda
• Public awareness of the value of engagement
• Quality through RD partnerships and promotion of
  evaluation
• Professional development throughout family
  education field through resource provision,
  training, collaboration and upholding
  professional standards

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National Institute for Early Childhood Research
standards

• Minnesota one of seven states with comprehensive
  program service standards
• Other states are Colorado, Delaware, Kentucky,
  New York, Oregon, Wisconsin

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NIEER standards

• Parent involvement activities
• Transition to kindergarten activities
• Parent support or training
• Referral to social services
• Referral to child health services
• Nutrition information
• Parent education or job training
• Parent health services

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Other promising efforts to work together to
create aligned family involvement pathways

• Pre-K NOW and NAEYC joint development of family
  engagement principles, standards and
  recommendations for states to achieve meaningful
  engagement in state-funded Pre-K (state
  leadership and communication of the value of
  family engagement, plans, monitoring, core
  competency, attention to transition, and family
  involvement in planning and advisory roles)

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Other Encouraging Efforts

• Specification of family engagement as a component
  of high quality early childhood systems (Sharon
  Lynn Kagan, Advancing ECE Policy, Center for
  Education Policy website) and growing
  Administration support for this as part of new
  efforts to develop a coherent system of early
  childhood services
• Broader, Bolder Approach to Education
  (Accountability Statement emphasis on
  transparency and communication with parents)
• Working Group on Family, School and Community
  Engagement
• The PIRCs (national and Minn.)
• Many local community innovations, Oakland, Calif.
  School District Office of Complementary Learning
• STRIVE

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Building Community Pathways

• Strive
• A Cincinnati Initiative from Cradle to Career

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• S

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Other Innovative Local System Building Efforts

• Blandin Foundation-funded blended early childhood
  family engagement trial in Grand Rapids, Minn.
• Buffett-funded early childhood campus in Kansas
  City
• Others?

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Stimulus package opportunitiesWatch the Federal
Register and comment on the Pillars

• Teacher effectivenessnumber of schools that
  integrate family engagement in professional
  development and performance assessment
• Higher standards and rigorous assessmentsadoption
  of family engagement standards and transparent
  progress reporting
• Intensive supporthigh need schoolsimplementation
  of family engagement, transition strategies,
  blended funding
• Better information to publictracking data on
  family engagement, clear and comprehensible
  student and school performance data

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What do you think it will take to build a state
family,school and community strategy for
Minnesota and what is the role of MNAFEE in this?
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HARVARD FAMILY RESEARCH PROJECThttp//www.gse.ha
rvard.edu/hfrp/index.html

• FAMILY INVOLVEMENT NETWORK OF EDUCATORS
• (F.I.N.E.)
• http//www.gse.harvard.edu/hfrp/projects/fine.html