Initial Draft
Parental Involvement and Support and the Affects on Student Achievement
Tyrance Barnett
Student
academic achievement is critical to the future of our families, communities,
and the nation’s economic strength. It’s
a fore gone conclusion that without highly educator leaders, our socio-economic
foundation will collapse along with our strong family structure. I think back to the days of my
childhood. Growing up in poverty was
difficult for me, my siblings, and the other children in my neighborhood. We faced many challenges everyday that could
limit our motivation to attend school let alone curtail our academic success. I
witnessed the failure of many of my friends just getting past middle school.
Their family structure would allow them to just drop out and do nothing. However,
the support and parental involvement that my siblings and I received from my
mother made it impossible for any of us to give us. I have taught now in public school for ten
years and have built relationships with several students who were and are in my
same situation as a young student. So, the inquiry began with regards to
parental involvement and support and what it means. “Although there are numerous definitions of
parental involvement in education, we define it as “parents’ interactions with schools
and with their children to promote academic success (Hill et al., 2004, p.
1491). This is somewhat broader than the definition articulated in the NCLB,
which is “the participation of parents in regular, two-way, and meaningful
communication involving student academic learning and other school activities”
(No Child Left Behind Act, 2002, §9101)’. Does it really make a difference in
student achievement and retention? Are some students just driven to succeed no
matter the circumstance? Many will
advocate of parental involvement will say that it is absolutely necessary. Some will argue the opposite stance. Others
will say it is the type of parent involvement that makes the difference. The
bottom line is student academic success is our main goal as educators. This action research will seek to find the
some answers to this inquiry and hopefully create hypothesis that will lead to broader
research.
The need this action
research was determined by me after I became the math facilitator at my campus.
I was hired as the math facilitator in June 2012 and immediately began to
review the data related the previous 3 years TAKS score and the 2012 EOC score
for Algebra 1. In reviewing the data, I found a trend related to our most
challenging ethnic group. We are
considered an “At-Risk” campus and were Title I eligible for the past 2 years
due to the high population of Hispanic ELL (53%) and African American (27%). As
I looked at these student’s attendance and referral records, I realized that they
had a very high numbers of absences and tardies. I formulated
conclusions regarding parental involvement based on this data. I was alarmed
with the number of students who failed these state standardized tests and local
grading cycles. Many of these students had little to no parental support and
involvement in their academics.
The
needs assessment initiated my inquiry.
Does parental involvement and support directly affect student
achievement and their academic success? There seems to be a possible connection
between the two. The goal of my action
research is to try and answer this question or bring forth some continuing
research into the inquiry. I will seek to answer the following questions:
·
Do students with a medium to high level
of parental support and involvement achieve at higher levels than those who
have low level to none parental support?
·
Is parental support and involvement a
key factor in student retention? If so why?
·
How does demographics, ethnicity,
socio-economic status relate to parental support and involvement?
·
As educators, what can we do to increase
parental support and involvement?
·
Does a one or two parent home affect
parental support and involvement?
“Parental involvement, according to
a comprehensive study by the Southwest Education Development Laboratory, or
SEDL, has a positive impact on student achievement at all socioeconomic levels,
though involvement is probably more important for low socioeconomic schools, as
they are more likely to have lower test scores and graduation rates (Zimmerman,
2013)”. This seems to be consistent with what I have seen in my campus’ data. However, I must say that the data supports that
students with very high levels of parent involvement are achieving at much
faster rate than students without. Some have even argues that parental
involvement and support only matters at the elementary and primary schools. According
to a recent article, “Researchers and teachers agree that parent involvement in
school is more important than ever, especially in the primary and elementary
levels. The primary and elementary grades are where parental involvement in
school matters the most, according to educational research (Hootman, 2013)”.
This case is argued because she believes the best type of parental involvement is
communication at home rather than the parents coming to school and participating
in campus activities. Obviously,
communication would happen more fluidly and frequently with younger elementary
or middle school students than it would with high school students. Parents of high school students, especially
in the lower socioeconomic groups, seem to let their student attempt to handle their
own issues than get involved. Usually,
this does not lead to a successful end.
Why does this happen? Is it a cultural issue? I will argue that culture does play a part in
why parents let their students take on this adult role. From experience, I know that many of my low-income
friends from my childhood had parents who believed their child needed to grow
up quickly so they could face their economic deficits head on. They believed it
was part of growing up and maturing and thus they are being involved. “But even
observers who are sensitive to issues of class don’t always take a step back to
ask what kind of involvement we’re talking about, and to what ends. As is so often the case, our questions tend
to be more quantitative than qualitative, with the result that we focus only on
how much parents are involved. There’s something both short-sighted and
arrogant about exhorting low-income parents to show up at school events or make
sure the homework gets done. The
presumption seems to be that these parents lack interest or commitment — as
opposed to spare time, institutional savvy, comfort level, or fluency in
English. Annette Lareau and other
sociologists have described how class differences play out in terms of parental
advocacy — including why poorer and less-educated parents may be less effective
when they do become involved. (Kohn, 2013)”.
The idea of parental involvement is supported by many. This research
will continue long past this initial project because a true underlying question
needs to be answered outside of this research.
What type of “qualitative” parental involvement will best produce the
results that stakeholder’s desire.
I have presented my action research plan to my
peers during our initial campus in-service using handouts and a powerpoint
presentation. I have provided background information about the importance of my
action research project and shared some of my own personal feelings as to why I
believe the research is important for change and school improvement. The
handout included this background information as well as directions to access my
blog for more information, feedback, and project tracking.
I organized an
Action Research Committee with the help of my site supervisor. Team members
were paired and given certain areas of responsibility for data organization,
collection, and reporting to the committee. We would then collaborate and
discuss the data and how it had a positive or negative affect on our inquiry.
The information would be charted and placed in a database sub category (single
parent home, two-parent home, other living arrangements, ethnicity, sex,
socioeconomic status). We would work diligently to make some type of connection
with our inquiry and the data collected.
The committee chose
20 students (6 -white, 6 – African American, 6 – Hispanic, 2 – Asian) to serve
as our sample. We put the students in sub-categories based on grade-level,
parental status, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. I created an initial
parent survey and provide it to parents either via the school’s website or mail
out. The survey was used to access how parents feel about the school’s campus and
culture. The committee worked together to collect and analyze student data.
Data was collected on all students at the end of each grading period. The
student data we collected included progress reports, six-week grades,
assessment data, standardized test scores, attendance profiles and tardy
reports. We analyzed these results
against the parent data we received from teachers, coaches, sponsors, and
administrators. This data included parent contact logs, conferences, attendance
at PTA meetings and extra-curricular activities. We charted the data to see how
it affected student achievement in the classroom during each grading period. This
data was graphed so we can easily disseminate periods were parental support
increased or decreased and how it pertains to the students grades. We now have some tangible information that
will help discern if parental support and involvement truly affects student
achievement. At the end of the school year, survey questions will be given to
all members of the research committee for feedback on the project.
The
Action Research Committee is meeting monthly to collaborate on the progress of
the project. Group norms and expectations were the focus of the initial meeting
of the action research committee. We created a template for the meeting
agenda’s with these six questions in mind:
1)
What type of data was collected?
2)
Is the data genuine?
3)
How will the data be used?
4)
Can we formulate a conclusion based on
the data?
5)
Is more information needed to support
the data?
6)
Are there any adjustments to the needs
assessment that will increase the value of the data collected?
This
action research project serves the needs of the students with special and
exceptional needs and students with diverse backgrounds (cultural, ethnic,
economic, or special interest groups) due the fact that each of these students
groups have one thing in common and that is parents. These students, no matter
what need for services they have, still need the support and involvement of
their parents to help them be successful. None of us can go through this
academic juggernaut with any level of success without support from someone or
something. Why not make parental support and involvement the most important
asset. This action research will seek to serve a foundation for knowledge and
awareness by our academic institutions that our students need their parents
involved just as much as we want them involved.
However, we must reach out and educate our parents on what they can do
and ways they can help. This parental involvement and support must be
qualitative and not just quantitative.
In
conclusion of my research, I will provide my fellow Action Research Committee members
a brief survey to get feedback regarding the research. I will also reflect on the research and seek
to answer the following question, “Is the action research plan providing the
directives needed for action change?” Finally, I will meet with my site
supervisor to review the goal and purpose of the research project and determine
if we met our goal. We will analyze the
feedback that we receive from the survey questions to find ways to improve the
project. I will meet with the Action Research Committee to thank them for their
participation in the project, share the feedback, and request further
assistance in providing ways to improve student achievement through parental
support and involvement.
References
Nancy E. Hill and Diana F. Tyson, “Parental Involvement in Middle School: A Meta-Analytic Assessment
of the Strategies That Promote Achievement,” Developmental Psychology
45 (2009): 741.
Alfie Kohn,” Is Parent Involvement In School Really
Useful?” (The Washington Post, 2013) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/02/06/is-parent-involvement-in-school-really-useful/
Barbara Hootman, “Parent involvement in school more
important than ever” (The Citizen-Times, 2013) http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20130227/BLACKMOUNTAINNEWS/302270012/Parent-involvement-school-more-important-than-ever
Jennifer Zimmerman, Deman Media,
“Parental Involvement in Low Socioeconomic Schools” (The Global Post, 2013)
http://everydaylife.globalpost.com/parental-involvement-low-socioeconomic-schools-2471.html
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