Some forms of parent involvement with the school such as communications with school, volunteering, attending school events and parent--parent connections appeared to have little effect on student achievement, especially in high school. Helping students with homework and other school-related activities were negatively related to student achievement. The reasons behind this negative correlation were found to be associated with students who had problem behaviors; certain parental contacts such as behaviour related ones or communications encouraging students not to pursue higher education.
Once these variables were removed, the negative effects disappeared. Further, it was found that parents who had children who were struggling academically were more involved with their children’s education, but the result was that there was little or no effect on achievement. This could be due to the fact that these students were struggling and low academically anyway.
One of the largest components of parental involvement is communication between school and home. Many parents and teachers feel that there could be improvement in this area. There are few parent-teacher training programs available and that most of these programs focus on changing parent behavior rather than working with strengths of both parties. The correlation between school-home communication and student achievement was relatively small in middle school. Grades are slightly more impacted than achievement test scores which may be because teachers have access to grades and reporting to parents.
Effective parental involvement could be a factor in raising overall student achievement. If it could be found to be a viable solution, then many failing schools could be improved. As yet, education officials are at a loss to explain why schools are not achieving, despite their efforts to continue to pour money into them with no effect.
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