Parental Involvement in Education

Happy National School Choice Week! We are a little late, as this occurred last week, but that is okay. According to their website, NSCW’s main objective is to “raise public awareness of all types of education options for children”. NSCW also heavily encourage parent involvement in children’s education. This raises many questions, such as “How much involvement should parents have with their children’s education?” and “Is there a misconception with parental involvement?” These questions will be explored by presenting a variety of viewpoints in response to these concepts.

The first question- How much should parents be involved in their child’s daily school work, as well as their education overall- is accompanied with strong opinions held by both sides. An article by Keith Robinson and Angel Harris published in the New York Times presents an argument as to why heavy parent involvement in their kids’ education has little to no benefits, and can even hinder a child’s education. The authors conducted a study on American families in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. From their study, they found that “Most forms of parental involvement yielded no benefit to children’s test scores or grades, regardless of racial or ethnic background or socioeconomic standing.” Based on their findings, Robinson and Harris argue that the amount of value parents place on education is much more influential than their actual involvement in their children’s academic lives. They do not entirely discount parent involvement, however. They state that frequent discussions about daily school experiences are linked to higher test scores for Hispanic children (but not black children). Furthermore, the researchers found that reading at home regularly aids white and Hispanic children, but again, not black children. In summary, this article suggests that most involvement in school’s education has no positive effects on a child’s academic performance.

In researching different view points on this subject, I found that the sources advocating for high parent involvements were typically lacking in reliable research and data, and that they were thus mostly based on common assumptions. For instance, one article titled “Parent Involvement is Key to Student Success” presents some points that most people would likely agree with. However, claims like Parental involvement enhances academic performance have proven to be false when explored by reliable sources, such as the New York Times piece on this subject. One claim I especially disagreed with was Parents should stay involved in their children’s education from preschool through high school. While the author did not define what she meant as ‘involved’, maintaining high involvement throughout a child’s entire education seems counterproductive to me. Lastly, this piece was very general and it did not mention how race and parents from different level playing fields should approach their children’s education. Clearly, families with different races and socioeconomic status should approach their involvement in their children’s educational lives differently. Unfortunately, this article only sees advantages in parent involvement in children’s education and thus ignores this consideration.

I grew up with my mother being very involved in my academics prior to middle school. She had me read extra books during summers and I was ahead of the standard math level when I was in elementary school. I have always done very well in school, but as I reached sixth grade, I was growing impatient of my mother’s heavy involvement in my daily school life. Therefore, I started to push her constant help aside and take on projects and studying entirely on my own. On one sense, limited involvement in a child’s education likely makes the child more independent at a much younger age, which can be very beneficial. Children with such parents may also be more mature and organized, as they rely on themselves to get their work done versus having a parent to assist them. However, too much independence could create distance between children and parents. Therefore, a possible way to have a healthy balance in parental involvement would be for parents to stay informed about their children’s school work. This means regularly discussing with children about day-to-day school life, in the case that if any issues arise, parents can be there to determine the best course of action for their children who may not already know how to handle difficulties.

Sources:

https://schoolchoiceweek.com/

https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/?_r=0

https://www.publicschoolreview.com/blog/parental-involvement-is-key-to-student-success

One thought on “Parental Involvement in Education

  1. Hi Stefania,
    I found this blog extremely interesting to read, seeing that this a topic that has been extremely prevalent throughout my education. In your first paragraph, you mentioned a statement published in a New York Times article saying, “Most forms of parental involvement yielded no benefit to children’s test scores or grades.” After reading this quote, I was reminded of the book “The Overachievers” written by Alexandra Robbins. I read this book during my AP Language class junior year of high school – a book written about, simply put, overachieving students in American schools, and the pressures put on these students by parents. This book mentioned the term ‘helicopter parent’ – a parent that constantly hovers while a child works and is concerned about his or her child’s success. The connection between this term and the quote in the NY Times article is the fact that parental involvement can sometimes even harm a child’s academic success because their constant involvement puts pressures on the student to achieve beyond his or her abilities, and I agree completely with your position in this paragraph.
    Additionally, in the second paragraph you mentioned how you strongly disagreed with the statement, “Parents should stay involved in their children’s education from preschool through high school.” I certainly disagree with this statement as well. In my opinion, high school is meant to prepare you for college, and beyond college – a time when a child will not have his or her parents at his or her side for direction and guidance with everything they do. For this reason, parents should not be completely involved, and instead should be in good communication. I believe successful communication is a two way street between students and parents – students need to keep their parents updated with their schoolwork and ask for help when needed, given that the parents believe in their children to have the capability to succeed without constant hovering.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *