In late 2005, individuals from across the country traveled to attend the national Office of Special Education Conference on Early Childhood in Washington, DC. Connected by networking at the conference, a group of parents with children with special needs left committed to collaboratively formulate a plan to create a family-centered and…

The purpose of this article is to help teachers become more responsive to the changing needs and contexts of families in their efforts to establish relationships and encourage family participation. Through this article, the authors describe the changing landscape of parenting and the stressors experienced by contemporary families. The authors then…

Every day, schools and communities across the U.S. identify millions of young children as "at risk"--especially those with a minority background, who live in poor neighborhoods or are learning English as a second language. FPG's Project U-STARS-PLUS (Using Science, Talents, and Abilities to Recognize Students-Promoting Learning for…

Community and family involvement in schools is a well-documented antecedent to student success; yet, educators often find it challenging to increase involvement with parents and members of diverse communities. One solution is to use information and communication technology (ICT) as a bridge between schools, families, and the community. This…

Parents are generally less involved in their children's science education (as compared to reading and mathematics) due to low self-efficacy and a lack of home-school communication. This study examined parental interest and attitudes in science as well as the nature of parent-to-child questioning during an interactive home, school, and community…

The National Household Education Surveys Program (NHES) is a random digit dialing (RDD) survey program developed by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. The surveys are designed to help NCES collect data directly from households about important education topics.…

Interaction with parents and family members continues to increase college campuses across the nation. This article describes best practices for communicating with and programming for parents and family members of enrolled students. These include orientation, electronic outreach and communication, parent-family weekends, younger siblings events,…

The purpose of this study was to determine the implementation status of Response to Intervention (RtI) in the elementary schools (N = 35) in one urban school district in Virginia. The relationship between the implementation of the academic components of RtI, collective efficacy, parents' trust in schools, the number of referrals for special…

This issue of "The Evaluation Exchange" spotlights one of the central components of complementary learning: family involvement. There are 28 articles herein: (1) "Thinking Big: A New Framework for Family Involvement Policy, Practice, and Research" (Suzanne Bouffard and Heather Weiss) reframes family involvement as part of a broader complementary…

This article discusses the challenges to engaging families in secondary schools, along with practical tips for improving family engagement at the secondary level. Some of these challenges include lack of connection, poor communication, poor attendance, and complex curriculum. The tips and practices that are presented here are just a few of the…

It is well documented that parent and family involvement in children's education correlates with success in school. The increasing number of English Language Learners in public schools has created a need for teacher educators to prepare preservice teachers to be able to work with families who have limited English. This study examined the outcomes…

One of the most powerful but neglected supports for children's learning and development is family involvement both in and out of school. Over 40 years of steadily accumulating evidence show that family involvement is one of the strongest predictors of children's school success, and that families play pivotal roles in their children's cognitive,…

Decades of research point to the benefits of parent involvement in education. Research has also shown that white, middle-class parents are disproportionately involved. Charter schools, as schools of choice, have been assumed to have fewer involvement barriers for minority and low-income parents, but a 2007 survey of charter leaders found that…

This paper presents the findings of a study which explored teacher-family collaboration in state primary schools in Cyprus. The research strategy was one of multiple case study, with a sample of seven teachers, their pupils and the pupils' parents. The research approach was ethnographic and the data set reported in this paper includes the data…

Learning to count is something that most children start to do by the time they are about two, and parents know from first-hand experience that family members play a big part in helping with this complex process. In this article, the author describes a project involving families sharing effective counting activities. The project called…