inform them about classroom happenings and requirements (NSPRA, 2011).
> Only 22% of parents could name a basic milestone that their child should have learned in the past year (Public Agenda, 2011).
When it comes to parents’ satisfaction with their child’s school, family engagement is the biggest driver of overall satisfaction. Yet only one-third of parents feel very satisfied with family engagement at school (Mattal, 2017).
Engaging Black and Hispanic families is even more critical as a student’s race and immigrant status have been shown to be factors in whether or not teachers contact their parents. Math teachers are more likely to contact parents of Black and Latino youth about disruptive behavior than parents of White youth; math and English teachers are less likely to contact immigrant Asian parents about academic and behavioral concerns, even when students are struggling; and teachers are less likely to contact minority parents with news of accomplishments (Anderson, 2016).
Yet, 75% of Black and 67% of Hispanic parents say a parent can never be too involved in a child’s education. About half (47%) of White parents agree (Pew, 2015).
Parents are not alone. K-12 teachers cite a lack of parent involvement in the classroom as a top three source of frustration and nearly all want parents to get involved in their classroom by “communicating regularly” with them (Univ. of Phoenix, 2014). The teacher-parent partnership is key to family engagement, which positively impacts student achievement. A University of Chicago study following 400 schools found significant academic gains by students in schools that prioritized relationship building between families and teachers, compared with schools that didn’t.
Barriers to Engagement
Project Appleseed highlights ineffective school communication, insufficient teacher training, and a lack of trust between teachers and parents as barriers.
In a 2012 survey by NEA, 68 percent of teachers reported difficulty in dealing with parents while 63 percent of parents reported never having difficulty with teachers. But one-quarter of parents stated their biggest challenge has been teachers’ perceived lack of understanding for their concerns, while one in three teachers cited parents’ lack of understanding of their child’s issues as their biggest challenge.
Dr. Karen Mapp has also written: “[family engagement] mandates are often predicated on a fundamental assumption: that the educators and families charged with developing effective partnerships between home and school already possess the requisite skills, knowledge, confidence, and belief systems to successfully implement and sustain these important home–school relationships.” She explains how this is flawed:
Instead of promoting equal partnerships at a systemic level, many family engagement initiatives default to simply one-way communication (SEDL, 2013).
Can Technology Play a Role in Family Engagement?
It takes both teacher and administrator time to keep parents informed. Similarly, parents juggle work, family organization, and communication commitments to their children’s schools. Technology is increasingly being used to facilitate the regular communication that teachers want with families.
Recent studies show technology can also make a difference in relationship building and student learning outcomes. Text messaging centered on educational goals between parents and teachers was shown to boost student academic outcomes – i.e., GPA and tests scores (Wood, 2017). One study showed students get more homework done when parents and teachers emailed each other (Kraft, 2014).
However, because most content is pushed out by schools, edtech platforms can become an easier and effective way for schools to “broadcast what’s going on without necessarily engaging families,” according to Steven Sheldon, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for the Social Organization of Schools. Since low-income parents are less likely to use school web portals, Sheldon says districts need to take care not to exclude populations with the highest needs: “