NCCRESt

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Parent School Relationship

• A 75-Year Legacy on Assessment: Reflections from an Interview with Ralph W. Tyler
  This article presents an interview with Professor Ralph W. Tyler (a pioneer in the field of education and assessment) that lends some historical perspective to the current alternative assessment movement.
• Bridging Cultures between Home and School: A Guide for Teachers--With a Special Focus on Immigrant Latino Families
  This book focuses on how to meet the challenges of education in a pluralistic society, presenting the Bridging Cultures framework, which is designed for understanding differences and conflicts that arise in situations where school culture is more individualistic than the home value system.
• Class Web Sites Can Offer Enhanced Access to Information for Language Minority Parents and Students: Promising Practices
  Offers suggestions on how to add the power of a free online translator, links, and multicultural search engines to a teacher's classroom home page. Describes the Alta Vista Babelfish online translation service that can be used to translate Web pages on a variety of topics written in German, Spanish, Italian, French, or Portuguese.
• Community Elders: The Roles of Parents in a School of ”Choice”
  "This paper critiques the common argument that schools will become more responsive to parents and more equitable when ”chosen” by the clients they serve. Based on a qualitative study of an urban Catholic high school that is ”chosen” by an increasingly diverse clientele, the paper demonstrates that, even in schools that are outwardly characterized by values cohesion, shared goals, and voluntary affiliation, interaction between a school and its environment is likely to be a process of ongoing negotiations and unarticulated struggles for voice among unequals.
• Equity and Excellence: Providing Access to Gifted Education for Culturally Diverse Students
  This article maintains that the underrepresentation of diverse students in gifted education programs is due to a "deficit perspective" about culturally diverse populations. Recommendations include identifying and serving underachievers and low socioeconomic-status students, providing educators and gifted students with multicultural education, and developing home-school partnerships.
• Ethnic Minorities and Achievement: The Fog Clears. Part I (Pre-16 Compulsory Education)
  Quantified ethnic elementary school student underachievement data in the compulsory subjects of mathematics, science, and English, with a focus on Black and African Caribbean students. Negative influences to academic achievement in the school environment, including student-teacher relationships and lack of parental involvement, are discussed.
• Issues in Shared Schools in Mixed Aboriginal & Non-Aboriginal School Systems
  Canada's public schools are essential public goods resources. For children to benefit, parents cooperate in efforts to support and enhance their children's education.
• Literacy, Power and Social Justice
  This book examines how in a multicultural, multilingual society, schools must involve parents and community members in literacy teaching and learning. By building on existing literacy, schools can become catalysts in empowering children, families, and teachers.
• Management Strategies for Culturally Diverse Classrooms. Fastback 396
  What teachers consider to be "discipline problems" are determined by their own culture, and filtered through personal values and teaching styles. Therefore, to manage diverse classrooms effectively, it is essential for teachers to understand what constitutes good classroom discipline within the context of cultural diversity.
• Meeting the Needs of All Children
  Encourages Head Start programs to use parental involvement and communication to support multiracial and multiethnic children by listening to parents, providing information, and welcoming the family. Lists specific areas to address in supporting diversity and dealing with common problems.
• Multicultural Aspects in the Education of Children and Youth with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities: Introduction to the Special Issue
  This introductory article discusses cultural considerations in the design and delivery of services to families whose children have a moderate to severe disability. It calls attention to the lack of consideration of culturally and linguistically diverse families in the current research and summarizes the following articles.
• Multicultural Education. Theory to Practice
  Teachers from two urban elementary schools completed surveys about their multicultural education practices. The surveys examined demographics, content integration, instructional and grouping practices, and parent-community involvement practices.
• Negotiating the special education maze: A guide for parents and teachers
  Designed to assist parents and teachers in understanding the complex procedures of special education, this book describes the process for obtaining school services for children with disabilities. An introduction reviews six major provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that relate to children's rights to a free, appropriate public education and parent involvement in decision-making.
• Our Education, Our Future: Look to the Lower Grades
  In order for local Native American cultures to be included in the curricula of the lower grades of public schools, Indian parents and community members must represent their community to the school board and establish a presence in the wider school community. Presents assertive, persistent, and well-informed strategies to build positive relationships with teachers and schools.
• Quinta da Princesa: A School "Reaching Out."
  Describes how positive interventionist strategies improved the experiences and educational opportunities of the African-Portuguese and Romany children in Portuguese schools. The background of linguistic diversity in Portugal and the ethnic diversity in Portuguese schools are discussed.
• Reaching All Families: Creating Family-Friendly Schools
  Recognizing the critical role parents have in developing their children's learning habits, this booklet offers strategies that focus on ways principals and teachers can communicate with diverse families about: (1) school goals, programs, activities, and procedures; (2) the progress of individual students; and (3) home activities which can improve children's school learning.
• Reasons for and Solutions to Lack of Parent Involvement of Parents of Second Language Learners
  Noting that one of the most challenging tasks educators face in improving parent involvement, particularly among parents of English as a Second Language (ESL) students, this paper describes categories of parent involvement, examines several barriers to parent involvement, and offers suggestions for improving parent involvement.
• School-Based Management: Involving Minority Parents in Shared Decision Making
  In the past decade, systemic school reform has taken hold in America in the form of ”school-based management” (SBM) or shared decision making as a mechanism for improving schooling. Despite the lack of positive findings from research on the ability of this innovation to improve schooling, the reform innovation continues to grow.
• School-Based Management: Involving Minority Parents in Shared Decision Making
  In the past decade, systemic school reform has taken hold in America in the form of ”school-based management” (SBM) or shared decision making as a mechanism for improving schooling. Despite the lack of positive findings from research on the ability of this innovation to improve schooling, the reform innovation continues to grow.
• Teacher work context and opportunities for parent involvement in high schools of choice: A view from the inside
  Schools of choice are fast becoming part of the national debate on educational reform. This study, part of a larger study of schools and families, examined how the work context of teachers and opportunities for parent involvement differ under different choice arrangements, and investigated aspects of the sociobureaucratic context of teachers' work that have the greatest impact on opportunities for parent involvement and communication under different choice arrangements.
• Teachers' Perspectives on Their Work with Families in a Bilingual Community
  Reviews research on teacher-parent relations, integrating three teachers' perspectives on their work with families in a bilingual community. Describes observations and interviews with teachers and parents over a school year that offer data for an in-depth analysis of teachers' perspectives on teacher-parent interactions in this setting.
• The Admission and Induction of Refugee Children into School
  Examines induction and admission practice for refugee school children into Britain's public schools, highlights the educational issues and concerns of newly-arrived refugee families, and discusses what schools can do to make their entry into the school system less problematic. The author explains how good admission and induction practices can build strong school/parent partnerships that benefit children.
• The Conciliation Project [Videotape].
  This 23-minute videotape describes the Conciliation Project, which was developed to resolve conflicts between parents and schools in Lane County (Oregon) regarding students' special education programs. The video presents a case developer who gathers information about a specific situation and a team of trained community volunteers who facilitate the communication process and help the participants develop a plan of action or resolution.