Parental Involvement Is Overrated

[AngryAmish]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/

Most people, asked whether parental involvement benefits children academically, would say, “of course it does.” But evidence from our research suggests otherwise. In fact, most forms of parental involvement, like observing a child’s class, contacting a school about a child’s behavior, helping to decide a child’s high school courses, or helping a child with homework, do not improve student achievement. In some cases, they actually hinder it.

Over the past few years, we conducted an extensive study of whether the depth of parental engagement in children’s academic lives improved their test scores and grades. We pursued this question because we noticed that while policy makers were convinced that parental involvement positively affected children’s schooling outcomes, academic studies were much more inconclusive.

Despite this, increasing parental involvement has been one of the focal points of both President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act and President Obama’s Race to the Top. Both programs promote parental engagement as one remedy for persistent socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps.

[Orrex]

1. So... Involvement doesn't help, and lack of involvement doesn't help.

Guess those kids are on their own!

[AngryAmish]

2. It is my belief that kids kinda end up they way they will end up

I'm old enough to see a lot of educational fads come and go. NCLB, new math, common core etc. Nothing really changes.

We need to pay teachers well to attract smart teachers. We need to keep schools safe. We need to keep the violent troublemakers away from everyday kids.

As a parent make sure you send your kid to a safe school with good scores. Other than that there is not much you can do.

[Orrex]

4. Safe schools and good teachers are absolutely essential. No question about it.

My personal experience suggests that a relatively stable home environment also benefits the children's abililty to learn and prosper, but the value of quality teachers can not be overstated.

[charmay]

3. If my mother hadn't "cracked the whip", I wouldn't have done as well in school.

If she hadn't read to us, and found books that she knew we would like, my brothers and I would not be the avid readers that we are. Though I hate No Child...and Race to...I agree with parental involvement.

[abelenkpe]

5. Wait...

"Both programs promote parental engagement as one remedy for persistent socioeconomic and racial achievement gaps."

Want to promote parental involvement? Make it so both parents don't have to work full time in order to get by.

[Nine]

6. An opposing view:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-moment-youth/201404/inflated-research-claims-can-harm-children

Inflated Research Claims Can Harm Children: Why “parental involvement” is not a “broken compass.”

Published on April 14, 2014 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell, Ph.D. in The Moment of Youth

In our fame-seeking and data-driven world, the most outrageous claims made by “experts,” bloggers, and researchers often gain the most media attention. That’s because they create controversy that is widely disseminated on social media. In turn, controversy builds audiences and sells publications.

One case in point that recently sent shivers down my spine involved two articles that tout recent research and a new book, The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement with Children’s Education by Keith Robinson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at the University of Texas at Austin and Angel L. Harris, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology at Duke University.

...

This weekend, an article was published in the New York Times by Robinson and Harris entitled Parental Involvement Is Overrated. In this article, the authors concluded that their extensive longitudinal study suggested parental involvement in education has little effect on academic achievement. They asked, “What should parents do?” They answered, “They should set the stage and then leave it.”

...

I must admit these two articles provoked me to scrutinize Robinson and Harris’ research. Why? Because when researchers use “big data” to draw simple conclusions that can potentially harm children, I think we all need to model the art of positive skepticism...

My gut tells me that the Robinson/Harris study is off the mark. I wonder if they made the mistake of equating correlation with causation. Kids who are already struggling in school might be more likely to see their parents get involved as a way of trying to fix it. These may be kids who would otherwise be flunking out but aren't because their parents are stepping in to help. So they look to researchers like kids who are doing just about as well as their peers despite parental involvement... but that's only because of parental involvement bringing these kids up to par.