Presents lessons for family-school-community cooperation drawn from the work of schools in the League of Schools Reaching Out and from policy analyses by the Institute for Responsive Education. The most important policies are those that provide flexibility and respect diversity while evaluating and changing as they operate. (SLD)

The League of Schools Reaching Out is a national project designed to study ways in which a family-community-school collaboration can contribute to school reform. This document reports the results of a 1991 survey of 42 schools belonging to the league. Results concerning strategies and practices of collaboration indicate that: (1) the level of…

Examples of effective parent and citizen involvement in schools throughout the United States are cited. Actions include a ruling in Boston that parent groups have a right to monitor classrooms in that city; a new collective bargaining law which provides open access to information about the agenda and content of collective bargaining; and the…

Schools participating in the League of Schools Reaching Out, a national reform project, offer multiple examples of practices to increase family and community involvement. These numerous efforts exist without benefit of a clear, comprehensive, and supportive policy. Developing such a system must be a national priority. (SLD)

Five years of research on collaborative practices have led the Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children's Learning to formulate 10 policy recommendations for a comprehensive program of school, family, and community partnerships to improve the academic achievement and social success of all students. (SLD)

Reflecting the renewed interest in a variety of plans to increase parent and citizen participation in education, this paper divides the questions surrounding this issue into the following four categories: co-production (partnership), decision making, citizen advocacy, and parent choice. Under each of these categories the paper considers such…