Parent Involvement in Education

This paper was about the benefits of parents being more involved in their children’s educations, researchers have noticed that if more parents were involved in their children’s educations, they would have a more positive outlook on life. They have also found that more children would go on to furthering their education. Peters, Seeds, Goldstein and Coleman performed many research tests on this in 2007. There were many articles and much research to support that parent involvement influenced their children’s successful academic achievements.

This paper concluded that parental involvement in education is beneficial to the children’s success. Parental Involvement in Education In recent years, the Federal Government has implemented the No Child Left Behind Act. This act mandated that educators will no longer “teach to the middle” (Busby, Hubbard, 2004 pg 300), which left many students in the classroom behind others in their education. Unacceptable standardized test scores reflected the change in the education teaching in our schools.

Effective teaching and following this mandate requires that educators consider the needs of all their students’ differences and the needs of a broad range of learners. This is a difficult assignment for these educators who already have an overflowing plate of responsibilities. (Busby & Hubbard, 2004) Despite the unacceptable standardized test scores, the American educational system is considered one of the best in the world according to researchers Busby & Hubbard.The National Center for Education statistics reports the following (1999): • 95% of school-aged children attend school The United States has the third highest graduation rate in the world • The American public educational system is the only one in the world that encourages all children to attend school until graduation, • College enrollment by graduating seniors is the highest in the world. (Busby & Hubbard, 2004, pg 300-313) Even though the Federal Government passed the No Child Left Behind Act, it was passed to improve the educational system in the United States.

Parents should still be more involved in their children’s education. The educational system and parents should consider working together to make a change in the United States.Every fall should mean getting the children committed to their studies, but as parents should also make commitments to their school. If there were more parental involvement in children’s education, would it affect a child’s success in learning, their behavior, performance in school, and a greater chance of high school graduation? The studies have proven that parental involvement in a child’s school and learning is the key to the child’s success, fewer behavior problems, better performance in school and a greater chance of high school graduation.

I have observed a few incidents where there was no parental involvement in a child’s education. I have also observed a few incidents where there was parental involvement in a child’s education. Both of these observations had a strong influence on the child’s success of achievement in the school. The first observation was of a parent of a child with some known learning disabilities.

When these learning disabilities were discovered in the child at a young age, it affected their behavior in school and at home. These behaviors were a result of the child’s frustrations with learning.As the child grew older the parent was more involved with work and her own life rather than with her child’s education. There was very little time spent with the child on his homework.

The parent was more focused on why the child behaved the way he did in school, rather than seeing the frustrations that the child was experiencing with not understanding the homework. The neglect of parental involvement in the education resulted in the child falling more behind in the education and the behavior becoming worse as he got older.Eventually, at the age of about 13 the child should have been at about a 6th or 7th grade level of education, and reality was only at about a 1st-2nd grade level of education. There was very little advancement with this child because the only place he received help with his school work was at school.

If the child would have had more help at home, he may have advanced more. The second observation is of parents with a child with some known learning disabilities. These learning disabilities were discovered at the young age of about 6 years old. The school was aware of the problems that the child had and gave assistance in his learning.The parents were also aware of problems and were dedicated to assisting with his work at home also.

This child received the help he needed at school and at home with his education. This child grew up and successfully achieved academically and furthered his education. This observation occurred before the No Child Left Behind Act was passed. Both the first and second observations involved a child with known learning disabilities. The difference is that in the first observation, the child did not have a parent who was dedicated to assisting the child with additional help in his schoolwork.The second observation was a child who received the additional dedication from the parent with his schoolwork.

Therefore, in the second observation the child successfully achieved academically. The third observation is of a parent with a child without any known learning disabilities. The child has repeated first grade. The child receives no parental involvement with his education.

Therefore, the child only does schoolwork in school and never does it at home. The child has behavior problems and does not cooperate with the school to successfully achieve academically.The parent is not involved with his education. If there was parental involvement with the child’s education, might help correct the problem with behavior and prevent problems in the future. Then the child could successfully achieve academically, maybe.

The fourth observation is of a parent with a child without any known learning disabilities. The child is successfully achieving academically. There is parental involvement in the child’s education on a regular basis. This child has minimal known behavior problems, but nothing that is not correctable.The parents are dedicated to their child’s successful academic achievement. If this parental involvement continues in the same manner, this child should successfully achieve academically.

This child will most likely continue to successfully achieve academically in the future and further his education in life. Both third and fourth observations involved a child without known learning disabilities. The difference is that in the third observation, the child had no parental involvement in his education. In the fourth observation there was parental involvement with the child’s education.

Therefore, in the fourth observation, if the parental involvement continues with the child’s education the child should successfully achieve academically and continue to further his education in life. The hypothesis of this problem is if parents became more involved in their childrens’ educations, the children will successfully advance academically. These children may choose to continue to further their education because of the parental involvement. Every parent is capable of helping his/her child to succeed in his education. Parents do not need to be educated with a college degree to help his/her child.A parent needs to know how to read and write themselves and have the desire to help his/her child to succeed academically.

(The Jacksonville Free Press, 2003) A child needs a structured study environment at home. It is up to the parent to enforce a study only time to help their child study. This time should also be set aside for the parent as well. Children should be taught that school comes first before other activities that they would like to be involved in. With that said, children still need time set aside for activities that they would like to participate in.The Jacksonville Free Press, 2003) School is the place where our efforts can do the most good for our children.

Therefore, we need to become more active in our children’s education. Teacher’s should not be expected to be educating your child alone, too often they are expected to raise our children. Parents together, make a difference! (The Jacksonville Free Press, 2003) As parents, we can join and participate in Parent-Teacher Associations. We can attend our children’s programs and special activities.

Parental involvement is the foundation to our children’s success in their education. The Jacksonville Free Press, 2003) In order to examine parental involvement in children’s education, the BMRB Social Research was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools, and Families (DCSF) to conduct a survey of parents and guardians of children. Previously called the Department for Education and Skills (DES) previous surveys were performed in 2001 and 2004.The main purpose of the 2007 survey was to investigate and compare data from previous surveys of parents’ involvement in their children’s education. Peters , Seeds, Goldstein & Coleman, 2007) This telephone survey was conducted using 5,032 parents and guardians of children age 5-16 (living in England) attending maintained schools. This survey was performed by BMRB between August and October of 2007.

These interviews lasted approximately 20 minutes on average and were conducted via Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI). (Peters, Seeds, Goldstien, and Coleman, 2007) Some of the key findings of this study were not approximate half (51%) of parents felt very involved in their child’s education. This is an increase from 29% in 2001, and 38% in 2004.People who felt very involved were women, parents with young children, parents who left full-time education later, those from Black or Black British backgrounds and parents of a child with a Statement of SEN were all more likely than average to feel very involved. The parents that did not feel very involved were lone parents and non-resident parents. (Peters, Seeds, Goldstien, and Coleman, 2007) Successful education of our children contains many ingredients; however the most important one is parental involvement.

A student can overcome any obstacle(s) and compete with the best of them with in depth parental involvement.Students that have parental involvement in their education have shown success rates of 30% higher than those from families without parental involvement in their education. These studies were measured from the students GPAs; test scores in math, science, reading and social studies; and promotion, retention and teacher ratings. Studies have found that students that have involved parents are more likely to: earn higher grades and test scores, pass their classes, earn credits and be promoted, attend school regularly, have better social skills, show good behavior and adapt well to school, graduate and go on to further education.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress collected data from 2000 administration. The data collected showed that 90 percent of 4th graders were in schools where the school officials reported that more than half of the parents participated in parent-teacher conferences. Although, in the 8th grades, that percentage dropped to 57 percent. (Research Center, 2004) Dick Corbett and Bruce Wilson developed a program called “The Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership (CIPL).

This program was designed to increase student achievement by increasing parental involvement. The institute recruits parents to participate in a three two-day training sessions. During an interactive session, these parents received a combination of information, skills, and data. The evaluation whether parents’ participation in the program spurred a continued educational advocacy and involvement well beyond that evidenced during and just after training, as documented in a previous evaluation.After the training in CIPL, parents were more involved and learned that parent input is an important part of the decision to cut back on student’s educations.

Parents also learned with the CIPL training how to get other parents involved and put your voices together to stand up for education. (Corbett, Wilson 2008) In 2000, Gail Jordan, Catherine Snow, and Michelle Porche looked at a project EASE (Early Access to Success in Education) a literacy program in Minnesota. This program offered home and school activities for kindergartners and their families.Sessions in school included, trained parent educators coaching mothers in developing literacy skills. Then teachers sent home book-related activities for parents to do with their children.

Jordan, Snow, and Porche looked at the project in four lower-income schools in mostly middle class district. Over one year, the students in Project EASE made significantly greater gains in language scores than the children in a control group. These studies showed that the more activities a family completed, the higher their student gains.Referencehttp://www.sedl.org/connections/resources/evidence.pdfhttp://www.parentinvolvementmatters.org/system_files/library/58.pdf