In preparation for new federal legislation that promotes unprecedented levels of comprehensive planning and service integration at state and local levels, an analysis of state issues relevant to comprehensive service delivery is necessary. This paper examines such state issues, with a focus on Arizona's at-risk population, and presents a framework…

This paper describes a study that aimed to identify parental academic achievement and participation in their children's school as the primary motivators for children's academic achievement. Participants included 213 third and fourth graders from a Catholic School in Chicago. Two groups were randomly selected from records provided by the school.…

The current wave of school reform, with its emphasis on the learner, affords the opportunity to create environments that can foster excellence. The ability to support the development of excellence is threatened by commonly held beliefs that excellence depends on innate ability and that anyone who works hard enough will succeed, irrespective of the…

This publication is designed as a resource for practitioners to develop proactive practices that promote positive parent, family, and community relationships with schools. The strategies proposed are based on Epstein's 6-type model of parent and family involvement. Chapters 1 through 6 provide a comprehensive look at promoting and developing…

Many women find the modern nuclear family confining and oppressive, and seek liberation. Moving ahead to the postmodern family, as feminists advocate, is not the only path. Back-to-the-landers find fulfillment in the interdependent premodern family model. Surveys and interviews of over 2,000 back-to-the-landers over a period of 15 years are used…

This document describes four states' approaches to increasing the involvement of families in schools. It discusses the strategies used by the states to: (1) enhance teachers' capacity to work with families; (2) encourage local school districts to develop family involvement programs; (3) encourage efforts that use family involvement as a component…

This compendium provides 73 programmatic approaches for involving parents in their children's education. These strategies demonstrate the broad range of ways in which principals and teachers communicate with parents and work to help them support their children's learning. The strategies are organized into six categories. The first is home-school…

This policy paper of the Regents of the University of the State of New York describes the need for partnerships between parents and schools, principles underlying such partnerships, and obstacles to establishing such partnerships. In addition to covering these topics, the first part of the paper discusses family, community, and school…

One of nine competency-based training modules for personnel preparation in early childhood special education, this guide focuses on family collaboration. All modules are adaptable for use with a general audience, direct service personnel, or administrators and are based on the following principles of the Ohio Department of Education's Division of…

This project was developed and implemented to improve an open library program by increasing parent involvement. Through initial surveys, questionnaires, and the author's personal experience, it was determined that the problems experienced by parents, teachers, administrators, and students in the open library program were due to the ineffectiveness…

This report shows that, in low-income Mexican-American and European-American families, children's everyday learning activities at home and aspirations of parents for their children's future are key elements in home-school linkages. Two models of home-school linkages are reviewed: the cultural match/mismatch model and the two-way partnership…

This handbook focuses on parent, student, and staff responsibilities as they relate to the achievement of an excellent and equitable education for all students. Equity should be a major concern of all schools as an approach to teaching that extends through the grades. Responsibilities are listed for school staff members (administrators and…

This book introduces prospective teachers to the historical, social, and legal foundations of education and to the profession of teaching. The text is designed to help readers develop a conceptual framework for understanding the educational system within which teachers work, and challenges them to ask questions about the role of schooling in U.S.…

A program called Strong Families: Competent Kids was developed in response to the growing number of latchkey kids. The goals of the program are to help parents determine when their children are ready for self-care and to provide children with skills to manage self-care safely and confidently. It does not advocate that children should be left in…

An ethnographic investigation was conducted for the purpose of elucidating the impact of cultural contexts on teachers' values and classroom practices. Data were collected in a classroom in a Head Start center located in a small, economically depressed town in rural, central Pennsylvania. The study focused on the head teacher, the assistant…