 rate of grade
retention during the elementary grades. The researchers concluded that in order
to promote cognitive development and good attitudes toward learning, young
children need adults around them who model good habits of learning. In the
Milwaukee Project, the participants were enrolled in an enrichment program for
seven hours a day, five days a week, beginning when they were just a few months
old and lasting until they reached first grade. They maintained close to normal
IQ scores through age 14. However, the children performed lower than their IQ
scores might have assumed, but the researchers attributed this to the fact that
they were assigned to the lowest academic groups in their classrooms.
OTHER INNOVATIVE STRATEGIES
Because of working or poor
parents, and communities which have become fractured or decayed, schools must
re-create the "social capital in the community," says Coleman (1991). This means
bringing the parents together to agree upon and to enforce norms that support
the goals of the school. He warns, however, that a strong body of parents may
not always act how the school wants it to act, but will become advocates for the
children of the community.
Davies, Burch, and Johnson (1992) say urban elementary schools participating
in the League of Schools Reaching Out are redefining themselves as community
institutions, responding to the needs of their troubled environments. They use a
number of traditional strategies--open houses, fund-raising fairs, parent
conferences, volunteers, intergenerational literacy programs, and advisory and
policy councils. They also have developed three new strategies--parent centers;
family support programs, such as home visits and parenting workshops; and school
and community organization partnerships, with universities, businesses, civic
groups, and such.
Goodson, Swartz, and Millsap (1991) say successful family education programs
focus on empowering parents. This means they address those factors that alienate
parents from the schools, such as low levels of literacy. Other characteristics
provision of multiple levels of parent participation--any contact is seen as
different modes of contact that respond to different parent skills, e.g., home
visits are good for those who lack experience in working in groups;
helping parents move from one type of involvement to another, e.g., from home
visits to school settings;
sensitivity to the literacy levels of parents;
flexibility in scheduling and location; and
use of ways to create closer bonds with families, such as contracts or support
The Willard Model School Parent Center in Norfolk, VA, one of 12 elementary
school parent centers, is an example of the range of services this strategy can
provide. Parents help select the workshop topics, teachers brief parents at the
center every nine weeks on the upcoming curricula, the center provides a game
and computer loan library, and its coordinator and teachers visit parents in
their homes. During 1990-91, about 80 percent of the parents attended at least
one workshop; 71 percent attended two or more. The centers are financed by the
school system and Chapter 1.
Teachers Involve Parents in Schoolwork (TIPS), a program developed by the
Center on Families, Communities, Schools, and Children's Learning at The Johns
Hopkins University, makes homework interactive with parents (Epstein, Jackson,
& Salinas, 1992). The program has developed 160 prototype interactive
homework assignments linked to the curriculum for Baltimore inner-city middle
school teachers. Parents help children with such assignments as oral family
histories, science experiments in the kitchen, or reports on health topics.
In Indianapolis, families interact with schools via a local cable channel
that broadcasts a homework hotline; children and families can get visual answers
to questions about homework assignments (Epstein, 1992). To counteract low
attendance at school meetings, some schools are using tape recordings,
videocassettes, or answering machines in schools or classrooms which can send
and receive timely messages. Others