Parent Involvement: The Key To Improved Student Achievement

There is a sizable body of research literature supporting the involvement of parents in educational settings and activities. Because the existing literature base on parent involvement is large and growing, we have chosen to present only a summary of selected research ndings and relevant literature in order to establish a framework underpinning the legitimacy of our parent involvement investigation. Epstein (1995) for example sets the stage by dening parent involvement as families and communities who take an active role in creating a caring educational environment. She further asserts that parents who are involved with their children's education are those who consistently demonstrate good parenting skills, communicate with the school staff, volunteer their time in the school, help their children learn at home, take an active role in school-related decision making, and who regularly collaborate with the school community. Christensen and Cleary (1990) suggest that parents' active involvement results in greater recognition of teachers' skills, better teacher evaluations from their principals, enhanced parental understanding of the inner workings of the school, and higher school ratings in effectiveness and program success. Additionally, in schools where student achievement was reported, Loucks (1992) found that parent involvement was a signicant factor in both accelerated and sustained student academic performance. While we have little argument with the general premises stated above, we wanted to know if similar improvement might be attained by inner-city elementary students (specically third-grade students) if parents became more directly involved with their children's education. To nd the answers,