Center for Law and Education News Release

Family-School Links Need Restructuring if Reforms are to Succeed

WASHINGTON, DC--The lack of strong family and community support and involvement threatens to undermine ambitious efforts to reform public education, more than 40 grassroots organizations contend in a report released today by the Center for Law and Education (CLE).

The slow pace of promised change, particularly in low-income communities, is depriving millions of students of high-quality education, says Urgent Message: Families Crucial to School Reform. Unless families and communities are mobilized to help shape and support them, plans for reforms are not likely to succeed. Furthermore, most families are unaware that many of the elements of reform, particularly those targeted at improving learning for all, are required by federal or state laws, including a rich and challenging curriculum, well-qualified staff, strong staff development, effective individual assistance for students who need it to master high standards, and strong parent involvement in program planning and implementation.

Schools mostly rely on traditional, low-impact forms of parent and community involvement, according to Urgent Message. Teachers have neither the preparation nor the time to work closely with parents. Moreover, schools are not using the research results that show when parents and communities link closely with schools and push for changes, student achievement improves.

Urgent Message summarizes the discussions and findings of a national conference, held early in 1997, that brought together representatives from more than 40 community and education groups, national organizations and foundations. The conference decided on three priorities to assure that reforms get implemented:

• mobilize families and communities to understand and push for reforms that benefit all children and that implement their rights to high-quality education;
• adopt policy and accountability structures which more directly assure parents that their children will get the high quality instruction and assistance needed for high achievement now; and
• implement wide-scale strategies to boost the capacities of educators and schools to enable students to reach high standards and to work with families toward that end.

"Standards-based reform will not deliver on its promise of high achievement for all while so many parents, schools and students know so little about it, and about the laws and educational research findings that support it," says Paul Weckstein, co-director of CLE. "The promise will wither unless people know what to look for and have the tools to make it happen. It's about far more than new standards and tests." CLE, a national nonprofit organization that advocates for students' rights to quality education, hosted the conference, held at Del Mar, California. The conference and report were sponsored by the Danforth Foundation of St. Louis and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Kansas City.

In addition to presenting research findings, Urgent Message includes case profiles of schools where exemplary partnerships between schools and families/communities are responsible for higher student achievement. At Ysleta Elementary School in El Paso, for example, parents serve on the school-wide standards team and on all school improvement committees, as well as participate with teachers in staff development. Ysleta's students, once among the lowest performing in the state, now have average scores that rank the school among the top ones in the state. A high mobility rate kept Norwood Park Elementary School's achievement low, but parents and teachers in this low-income Chicago school used data to analyze the problems, surveyed parents and developed programs to keep students in the school. The mobility rate dropped from 50 percent to 8 percent. Other profiles include: Englehard Elementary School in Louisville, KY; Midway High School in Kingston, TN; Patrick O'Hearn Elementary School in Dorchester, MA; Lucy D. Slowe Elementary School in Washington, DC; Vaughn St. School in San Fernando, CA and P.S. 261 in Brooklyn, N.Y.

The strategies adopted by parents in the case profiles are helping to transform school-parent involvement in public education. They are pushing the system to change, helping to design local school improvement and using opportunities for parent involvement created by the reforms. Urgent Message also describes steps needed to gain such parent/community support for reforms. These include a national campaign to emphasize the importance of grassroots involvement in school reform, networks to share information and actions, policy and accountability measures to guarantee progress on reforms and support for local advocacy work on school reforms.

Urgent Message will be used by CLE and the groups participating at the Del Mar conference as a "call to action" for gaining grassroots engagement in standards-based reforms. CLE, for example, is initiating Community Action for Public Schools, a network for parents, educators, students, and advocates who are committed to making the right of all students to high-quality education a reality.

Copies of the 107-page report are available to the public from CLE for $14.95 plus $5 postage and handling. Members of the press can receive a free review copy by faxing or sending the attached form to CLE. Contact Kim Callinan for further information (CLE, 1875 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 510, Washington, DC 20009; 202/986-3000).

National Title I and School Reform Advocacy Project