"Strong Families, Strong Schools", a report released by US Secretary of Education Richard Riley, points to 30 years of research indicating that family involvement is a critical link to higher grades and test scores, positive attitudes and behavior, more successful academic programs, and more effective schools. Because of their ongoing relationship with students, schools play a key role in encouraging and supporting efforts by families to take a more active role in their children's education.

Parents can take a more active role in their children's education by:

• discussing regularly with children their classroom activities, and listening carefully to their explanations of what has been learned;
• providing time and a place for doing homework assignments;
• encouraging their children to persist when the work becomes difficult; not to expect parents or tutors to do the work for them;
• participating in parent-teacher conferences;
• taking advantage of opportunities to visit classes;
• engaging with their children in appropriate family games, puzzles, experiments, designing and model building activities that use a variety of mathematics, science and technology skills;
• participating in after-school parent/child programs, e.g. Family Math, Rutgers Family Science, and Family Tools & Technology.

Parental involvement in schools must move from rhetoric to practice -- from telling parents their involvement is encouraged, to guiding them in specific and appropriate ways to assist in their children's intellectual and social development.

Send mail to lomench@dimacs.rutgers.edu with questions, comments or requests for more information.
Last modified: November 11, 2002