Parental Involvement, Poverty, and Student Achievement Essay

Current education reform is intended to work out higher(prenominal) student achievement. match to Hanushek (1997), the development of school reform is gener aloney motivated by economic issues. Education reform becomes a meaning(prenominal) topic on the national agenda when the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued a report, A Nation At Risk (1983). This report focused on the claim that a cool it increase in mediocrity had overcome schools which impacted upon the economic engagement of the country.One example of this competitiveness was when the Soviet Union 1957 launched Sputnik. It was concluded that declines in educational performance were in large part the result of inadequacies in the way the educational process was conducted. The findings that fol downcast, selected from a much more than lengthy list, reflect four substantial aspects of the educational process content, expectations, time, and teaching. The United States regimen responded by beginning reform of how its educational system.As part of this process, all segments, including mention committees, were formed to give attention to the implementation of the recommendations of the report. The report still stated that reform should non only come from students, teachers, school boards, colleges and universities, local, state, and federal officials, teachers and administrators organizations, still also from invokes themselves with interested in and responsibility for educational moment begin with the p atomic number 18nt. more thanover, you bear a responsibility to participate actively in your babes education. You should encourage more diligent sketch and reject satisfaction with mediocrity and the attitude that says let it slide, monitor your childs study encourage good study habits encourage your child to engineer more demanding kind of than less demanding courses nurture your childs curiosity, creativity, and effrontery and be an active participant in the work of the schools. Above all, pose a commitment to continued learning in your own life.Finally, religious service your children understand that excellence in education cannot be achieved without intellectual and example integrity coupled with hard work and commitment (p. 26) Henderson and Berla (1994) did extensive seek linking maternal(p) interlocking to student achievement. There are a physical body of parenting practices that switch been associated with positive student outcomes. Despite this research, Desimone (2001) contends that there is still no clear understanding of how patterns and effects of parental involvement differ crossways ethnic and income groups.Previous studies stool shown that parent involvement patterns vary consort to parental social, racial-ethnic, and economic characteristics (Catsambis & Garland, 1997), but the findings have been mixed. Several studies have reported that base income minority parents often have different beliefs or so parents role in school involvement are less twisty in school activities than higher income, non-minority parents (Delgado-Gaitan, 1991 Chavkin & Williams, 1993). Other studies, however, have show that the level of parent involvement by race-ethnicity (i. e., Asian, African-American, Hispanic, and white) differs for only a a few(prenominal) types of involvement and that minority parents have higher levels of involvement in received areas than do white parents (Catsambis & Garland, 1997). Previous studies have reported that low-income minority parents often have different beliefs regarding parental roles in school involvement and are less involved (Chavkin & Williams, 1993). Comer and Haynes (1991) have hypothesized that low income and inner city minority students may be more positively affected by certain types of parent involvement than other students.According to them, in order for parental involvement programs to be successful, they need to be focused upon a school improvemen t process that is designed to pee-pee positive relationships that concentrate the total development of children and not the traditional bureaucratic or authoritative school environment which is a less collaborative structure. Other theorists (Devaney, Ellwood, and Love, 1997 Lewit, Terman, & Behrman, 1997) suggests that parental involvement may not be as effective in improving student achievement for low income children as for children from middle class homes.Because the large number of risk federal agents that impact upon children living in poverty, including health, safety, and housing, the role of parental involvement in schools in explaining academic outcomes for those children may be significantly less than for their peers who do not experience as many negative environment influences. Desimone (2001) suggests that race-ethnicity and other earth characteristics can be strong mediators in the effects of various types of parental actions and the impact they have on student achievement.While work in this area is limited, there is little information that compares the effects of multiple forms of parental involvement across several racial/ethnic and income groups. McNeals (2001) study investigated the relationships between parent involvement and socioeconomic status. Findings indicated that parental involvement was an important calculate in explaining behavioral outcomes (such as truancy and dropping out) but not cognitive outcomes (such as science achievement), with the greatest support for parent child discussion and involvement in parent-teacher organizations.He contends that there have been inconsistencies with the findings linking parental involvement to academic achievement. The contradictions likely were related to one of the avocation weaknesses in research. The first condition was the use of perception measures by teachers rather than direct reports by students and/or parents. Another was a failure to in full conceptualize parent involvement into its constituent parts. The last was not fully assessing the extent to which parental involvement differently affects academic achievement by social class.The three shortcomings can be improved upon but parent involvement has little effect on student achievement because it is a cognitive outcome and parental involvement affects behavioral outcomes. Reginald Clarks research shares findings from a body of research on closing achievement gaps in urban school communities (Ferguson, Clark, & Stewart, 2002). In Clark documents the importance of five prestigious factors for improved students achievement, especially among disadvantages urban students.The first factor is described as the teachers expectations and actions in the classroom. The second is amount of students weekly friendship in high-yield in and out of school activities. High-yield out of school activities accommodate leisure training, writing, studying, and participation in community and school clubs or programs, a nd playacting organize sports. High-yield in school activities scud on participating in classroom lessons as well as merged leisure activities. The third factor is the quality of students participation in and out of school activities.The fourth factor is parental beliefs and expectations. The fifth factor is parent-teacher communication. Ferguson, Clark and Stewart, 2002 found that the type and amounts of constructive in school and out of school learning activities contribute to a success-oriented lifestyle. More specifically, Clark found that high achieving activities. Some examples of actions in the classroom include reading, running(a) alone on a lesson, listening to a lecture, solving a problem with classmates, or asking questions.Ferguson, Clark and Stewart, 2002 found that high achievers spent more time during out of school high-yield learning activities than low achievers. Some activities include weekly time dialoguing with adults, hobby or volunteer activities, or orga nized sports. Regular study and homework routines, with adult monitoring or support, and reading and writing activities also were seen as practices in the home. Some less structured or unstructured activities include hanging out, playing video games, lecture on the telephone, and watching television.Ferguson, Clark and Stewart 2002 found that the beliefs and attitudes of parents had a significant role in student success in becoming competent readers. The analysis of data from parents of 459 students about their expectations for their childs learning and their perception of whether they had been support by their childs teacher showed that students benefit when parents set high standards for their childs performance in school and feel personally supported by partnerships they have formed with their childs teacher.Lastly, Clark indicates that parent beliefs are likely to be influenced by parent-teacher communication. In other words, parents may benefits from well-organized teacher-le d communications. When teachers take specific actions to cultivate instructional partnerships with parents, those parents are more likely to support their childrens learning at home. Clarks data showed that students scores were higher on the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment in reading when teachers reported more communication with parents.REFERENCES Bankston, C. L. , & Caldas, S. J. (1998). Family structure, schoolmates, and racial inequalities in school achievement. Journal of matrimony and the Family, 60, 715-723. Braswell. J. S. , Lutkus,A. D. , Grigg,W. S. , Santapau, S. L. , Tay-Lim, B. , & Johnson, M. (2001). Subgroup results for the nation and the states. In The nations report control panel Mathematics 2000 (pp. 53-181). Washington DC U. S. Department of Education, Office of Educational explore and Improvement, National Center for Education Statistics.