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Lesson 2.4

Parents:
A Child's First Teacher

Kids don’t pick their parents.

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Teachers matter a lot, but when it comes to education it all starts with parents and caregivers.

This lesson focuses on roles that parents can play in making education work, both for their own kids and for the broader community.

Birth to age five really matters

Learning begins well before formal education does. A child fortunate enough to be born healthy and to grow up safe and secure will generally do better at school and in life than a child raised in adversity or neglect.

Reading, even more than talking, builds early literacy skills. It makes sense: The language in books is usually more enriching than everyday speech. Reading out loud and playing with your children improves their behavior and attentiveness, skills imperative for success in school.

Before kindergarten, parents are kind of on their own to figure out what to do with their kids. Some non-profit organizations try to support parents as teachers. For example, the non-profit organization Reach Out and Read promotes the importance of reading to children. Meanwhile, The national PTA partners with Reading Rockets to provide family learning tools.

Poverty hurts learning

There is a strong connection between poverty and student learning, as we examined in Ed100 Lesson 2.2. A big part of that connection involves parents: poverty is time-consuming and distracting. Education researcher David Berliner argues that poverty severely disrupts parents’ capacity to support their children’s education. He calls poverty “the unexamined 600 pound gorilla in the classroom.”

Poverty makes it extremely hard for parents to participate in schools.

The poverty gorilla shows up in all kinds of ways. By age 3, for example, children from high-income families are exposed to more words than children from families on welfare. This disparity has an enormous impact on children’s intellectual development.

In a similar vein, research shows that parents’ income influences their ability to read and engage with their children. Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child corroborates this work, examining the biological impact of stress and neglect on kids and offering a set of eight key insights about child development.

How can parents help kids succeed in school?

Parents make a huge decision for their kids: Choosing a school, which we discuss in Ed100 Lessons 5.1 and 5.2.

Beyond that crucial choice, parents are involved in countless ways. From preparing your child for the first day of school to creating a space for learning at home, parent engagement makes a difference in the success of a child - and also the success of a school. Much of the research in this area is influenced by the work of Joyce Epstein of Johns Hopkins, who identified six areas of engagement:

Six areas of parent engagement

Volunteering

Communicating

Decision-making

Parenting

Learning at home

Collaborating with Community

It is relatively easy to engage English-speaking and highly-educated parents in school. It's what they expect and often demand. The real work lies in creating a school environment that welcomes all parents, including those with limited time, those who don’t speak English, and those who may not have experienced success in school themselves. School-based parent organizations are critical to that work.

What is a parent-teacher conference?

Once or twice a year, many schools try to arrange for parents to visit school and meet their child's teacher or teachers. In most schools, parent-teacher conferences are scheduled toward the beginning and toward the end of the school year. In well-to-do communities, parents almost always show up, and meetings might last as long as an hour, but they vary massively. At their best, parent-teacher conferences are personal and action-oriented — they enable the adults involved in a child's education to align their efforts. If a child is struggling, the parent-teacher conference is an opportunity to identify specific shared actions to do something about it.

Practically speaking, however, parent-teacher conference attendance tends to be spotty, and the conversations tend to be brief. Worse, parent-teacher conferences can serve up more wishful thinking than brutal honesty. It's human nature.

There's very little research about parent-teacher conferences, and there's no particular reason why they should work as they do (or don't.) For example, in some schools parent conferences include the student. Some are conducted in small groups.

How to develop teaching skills as a parent

As kids grow up, their needs become increasingly complex. Stuff happens, and responding to the challenges of parenting can be emotionally taxing. Parenting gradually becomes more like counseling or coaching, which (news flash) turns out to be rather hard.

Some schools, PTAs, and sports programs invest in training events or programs to help parents develop basic skills as parents and leaders. Some key ideas are glaringly obvious — but only after you've heard them. (The peanut-butter mindset, for example.)

Greatschools.org, a non-profit organization, has a huge collection of free, well-researched, well-edited resources about parenting skills for all sorts of situations. Rather than waiting for these situations to come up, register for their free newsletter. By entering your child's grade level you'll get a steady drip of parenting insights to help you stay a little ahead of parenting challenges that might arise.

How can parents get involved in school decisions?

Volunteer. Many schools have a PTA or other parent group. Getting involved as a volunteer is a great way to understand your school's advantages and challenges. It's also a good way to meet the school principal and teacher leaders.

Attend site council meetings. Principals make many important school-level decisions in conversation with a site council, a small group that consists of parents, students and faculty, often including the local union representative. Meetings are public.

Connect with district leaders. Many crucial decisions are beyond the control of a principal or site council. In California, a great deal of authority lies with the school district, which is managed by the local superintendent of schools. If you want something changed that's beyond the power of your school principal, contacting the district office is the next step. If you can't find the right contact at the district office, ask your representative on the school board for advice.

Use the LCAP process. If your idea or concern will require significant change, it needs to become part of the district's formal plan. Each school district in California operates on a three-year Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) that must be adopted annually by the school board with review by the County Office of Education. You can learn much more about the process in Ed100 Lesson 7.10.

Don't bother the mayor. If you are trying to make change in schools, it's usually a waste of time to appeal to the mayor or city council. As Ed100 Lesson 7.3 explains, they have little or no influence over schools, which are a separate arm of government.

The value of an engaged parent community

Parents can bring so much value to a school system that we committed a full Ed100 lesson to the subject in our chapter about funding and resources — see Lesson 8.11. In 2014 EdSource released conclusions from a survey about ways to support parent involvement in schools. Among the top findings? Give parents advance notice about meetings, offer translation services, and hold the meetings when parents are available. Through the LCAP, parents and communities have a say in how school districts set priorities and spend money. But how can you make informed decisions? Try these resources to get started:

  • Ed100’s LCAP parent checklist helps parents identify the most important needs at a school.
  • The National PTA scorecard helps school communities evaluate their current level of parent engagement, take action to expand it, and measure improvement over time. The scorecard includes six standards, based on Joyce Epstein’s model of parent engagement, with three levels of implementation for each standard.
parent engagement rubricPTA National Standards for Family-School Partnerships Assessment Guide ©California State PTA

Joining your school’s PTA or parent group is an important first step in learning more about your school and how you can help make it even better.

The California State PTA has also created parent academies called School Smarts to help parents navigate their local school systems and become effective child advocates. School districts that have used the program reported that it helped parents feel comfortable and informed to participate in school decision-making.

A wealth of evidence shows that parent and family engagement in schools can strengthen them and improve the quality of education. Check out the National PTA Diversity and Inclusion Toolkit for ideas. The toolkit includes survey questions you can use to measure improvement. (Also available in Spanish.)

Last updated October 2023.
Previous updates include:
July 2022
December 2020
May 2020
September 2018

Quiz

One of the following is NOT an effective way to support better education for your child. Which one?

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Questions & Comments

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user avatar
Carol Kocivar June 15, 2022 at 7:20 am
U.S. Department of Education launched the National Parents and Families Engagement Council to facilitate strong and effective relationships between schools and parents, families and caregivers. Families’ voices play a critical role in how the nation’s children are recovering from the pandemic.
user avatar
Selisa Loeza October 22, 2021 at 7:13 pm
I appreciate this and recognize so much of my children's success is because of my "over involvement". Yet, i recognize, this is a privilege. As VP of Membership for our school PTA, I see an opportunity to reach out to parents and find how we can meet their needs. Has anyone utilized a successful survey with parents? Any tips on what to include to get data and support? Thank you for your time and energy.
user avatar
Carol Kocivar October 8, 2021 at 5:03 pm
Local Control Funding Formula makes Parental Involvement a priority. School Districts have to report:
A. The efforts the school district makes to seek parent input in making decisions for the school district and each individual school site;
B. How the school district will promote parental participation in programs for unduplicated pupils; and
C. How the school district will promote parental participation in programs for individuals with exceptional needs.
user avatar
amy su November 5, 2020 at 8:43 pm
Communication is key. We need to get the word out that we can support with donating time, not just money. Also, there are resources to assist families.
user avatar
Jeff Camp November 15, 2018 at 3:58 pm
In 2018 the California legislature unanimously passed AB2878 (Chávez), which expanded and clarified the meaning of parent engagement in the LCAP. In the Senate Floor Analysis, the author defined "engagement" as distinct from "involvement" :
"How is family engagement different? Parent involvement generally refers to the
participation of parents in programs and activities that have been planned or
designed by school personnel, such as volunteering in a classroom or
chaperoning on a field trip. By contrast, parent engagement denotes the active
participation in informing decisions about LEA priorities and planning actions
to achieve them. "
user avatar
francisco molina August 13, 2019 at 1:52 am
The Hispanic side is more affected for the time, but if they have time still the language barrier specially for the necessary counseling, where almost don't exist bilingual counselors.
user avatar
nkbird July 27, 2018 at 4:54 pm
Another note, I regard myself s a full time parent and part-time teacher -- literacy support. I support a lot of English-language learners -- often the easiest to work with as their "issue" is pretty easy to identify and teach to. Tougher is kids from "language-poor" environments. The vocabulary deficits are stark. Sometimes I recommend TV!
user avatar
nkbird July 27, 2018 at 4:51 pm
Man oh man what I wouldn't give for advice on getting our bilingual (or non-English speaking) parents to school. Offering interpretation does not seem to help. Also our school has 5 major languages spoken, not just one...
user avatar
Caryn September 10, 2018 at 9:48 am
nkbird, I'm sure many Ed100 readers share your frustration. We know family engagement is critical to a child's success. Language barriers can be tough to overcome but it can be done. Other issues such as lack of childcare, conflicting work schedules or not understanding a parent's role in the California education can also hinder engagement efforts. Consistent outreach and relationship building is key and that is dependent on your unique school site. Readers, what is working at your schools to include English-language learners on campus?
user avatar
Sonya Hendren September 10, 2018 at 1:27 pm
At my school, most parents work, so getting them on campus just isn't going to happen; there isn't time in the day. But communication via preferred platforms (WeChat is big at my school) helps maintain fundraiser participation and increases awareness of upcoming events. It's all due to the tireless work of bilingual communicators! nkbird, you'd need at least 5!
user avatar
Carol Kocivar June 18, 2018 at 8:21 am
New research now questions the 30 million word difference between high and low income children--with newer studies showing different results.

Read about these findings
user avatar
Susannah Baxendale January 11, 2019 at 1:45 pm
Perhaps the concern for the "exact" number distracts from the basic idea that the more words a child hears over time and starting from an early age, the better. Parent ed on easy ways to increase talking-interactive time with their children might help parents with barely time to say hello much less verbalize what they are doing at the time, or asking open-ended questions (etc) make the effort. Scholars quibble over the word count rather than run with the concept that more talk is better than less, and ways to help parents achieve interaction and then more varied interaction. Of course, there is 'talk' (yelling and commanding) and talk (conversation, verbalizing what you are doing, etc), but I believe that if parents understood how they could fairly easily incorporate talking/interaction, they could then more on to higher level interaction.
user avatar
Mickey J June 12, 2018 at 3:09 pm
There is such a disconnect in some school communities between the utter lack of resources and learning. People say they care about education but don't want to fund basic needs of food, healthcare, shelter but would willingly donate to computers, scholarships.
user avatar
Alma Cacho May 2, 2018 at 9:42 am
As a staff member I am concerned that there's very little we can do about the income situation, other than maybe provide a few resources for families just to survive.
user avatar
jacquelinebispo May 2, 2018 at 5:57 am
The “Rights as Parents” link is a critical resource. Parents should know that our state’s public education system values them so highly as partners in their child’s education, that they are written into and have rights through California’s Education Code. This is a fabulous document (their rights section) to print and share with parents. It will help reinforce that value for them, and perhaps extra backing to advocate for their children as they feel is needed.
user avatar
Carol Kocivar March 3, 2018 at 5:54 pm

RESEARCH STORIES Harvard Graduate School of Education
The Brain-Changing Power of Conversation
"Interplay between parents and children ignites the brain and boosts its response to language, spurring lasting literacy skills."

Read the article

user avatar
Lisette October 3, 2017 at 1:40 pm
I have spoken to several friends who are teachers. One eye-raising comment I heard was that there are parents out there who always assume their child is not at fault. I'm not saying I'm perfect (I'm far from it!), but teaching children to be responsible human beings is essential to our society.
user avatar
Carol Kocivar September 19, 2017 at 2:19 pm
Looking for tips to help your child and school succeed? The California State PTA has 100 tipis inEnglish and
Spanish

user avatar
jacquelinebispo May 2, 2018 at 9:14 am
Thanks, Carol! This is AWESOME! Love that it's available in multiple languages!
user avatar
Alma Cacho May 2, 2018 at 9:44 am
Thank you Carol. I personally like the fact that is in Spanish as well.
user avatar
Jeff Camp - Founder July 15, 2017 at 1:13 am
An alternative approach to parent-teacher conferences: do them as a group, with the teacher and all of the parents together first, then hold separate followup meetings. Yes, it's been done. The buzzword for it is "Academic Parent-Teacher Teams" (APTT), coined by WestEd's Maria Paredes.
user avatar
David Siegrist1 April 30, 2017 at 11:59 am
Yes, schools can and should address the problem of low income. How? By directing residents to job opportunities in the community, training programs (Adult School and a Community Colleges), etc.

user avatar
Albert Stroberg May 1, 2016 at 5:59 pm
Parents- This a very big deal and waiting for school to start is putting kids years behind before they start. Parents can (and DO) make a difference from Day#1. Why not have our schools show parents how to be great teachers in the home?
user avatar
susan_m_mathews May 20, 2015 at 4:03 pm
I agree that it is very important for parents to be engaged in their schools, and I hope that this website will help support that. I was disappointed to see the tecommendation above that greatschools.org is a good way for parents to shop for a school. The great schools.org site gives patents only data about school performance on standardized tests, and demographic information about the students and parents. This is really site that just helps drive parents to higher-scoring a less diverse schools.
user avatar
Jeff Camp - Founder May 21, 2015 at 3:23 pm
Actually, GreatSchools provides quite a lot of information about schools beyond their test scores, and for many schools the site includes substantial comments directly from parents. Of course there is no real substitute for visiting schools, but parents need to start somewhere. GreatSchools provides visitors with a place-based view of the options, including private schools. More about school choice in lesson 5.2.
user avatar
David Siegrist1 April 30, 2017 at 12:00 pm
Why limit this to parents? What about grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.?
user avatar
shadowzwench April 27, 2015 at 12:20 pm
Parents need to be engaged with the schools and their children in order for everyone to succeed. Unfortunately reality is much different and it is usually a small group of parents that are engaged that struggle to ensure that all the kids at the school have as many opportunities as possible.
user avatar
Paigey Girl April 22, 2015 at 2:19 pm
Parent involvement is key to success in school! They are the first teachers and will influence a students desire to succeed!
user avatar
harplits March 13, 2015 at 7:29 am
As a former PTA president, working to engage and involve all of our parents was a frequent topic. One of the most helpful acts was to be certain we had parents on our board that were bilingual and present to answer questions at all parent/child events.
user avatar
Tara Massengill April 19, 2015 at 11:14 am
I wish more parents knew how much the PTA works their behinds off for their respective schools (especially the lower-income schools).
user avatar
Jenny N September 28, 2015 at 5:00 pm
Thanks for sharing that advice. It is so important!
user avatar
jenzteam February 27, 2015 at 9:25 am
Parents should be required to commit to a certain number of on-site hours at a school. During our years at a private school, we had the choice to either SHOW UP and give our time, or PAY a fee if we opted out. Of course, we gave our time willingly. Education is not up to the teachers or administrators - it is everyone's responsibility. Parents (especially minorities or undocumented parents) may feel intimidated as their education may be lower than the professionals teaching their children. However, if they are welcomed in and made to feel valued and wanted, it can make a significant difference in their participation. Nobody goes into parenting with a manual and all of the answers, but most parents do just fine nonetheless. Kids just need to feel like their parent cares enough to prepare them for each day, show up on time, communicate with the teachers, and attend school events. Kids rely on their parents to demonstrate what is expected of them. Respect, attendance, responsibility, etc.
user avatar
geecookie2011 April 18, 2015 at 7:27 am
I find that your statement is well intent to be a concern for the students however a teacher, educator they get paid to teach our children however if I'm going to do the teacher's role then I might as well keep the child at home and teach he or she myself. because if i need help at home no one from the educational world will come home and help me with my home please keep that in mind when you're making your suggestions.
user avatar
Brandi Galasso February 9, 2015 at 10:51 am
parents are 1st teachers and they need to realize that. Parents need to quit just dropping off their kid and picking up thinking the school is going to raise your child. Parents have to actively teach their kids everyday and assist teachers . without parents the school system is not going to get any better because no one cares like parents should. parents don't always know they are allowed to be involved and some schools make you feel very unwelcome, because the administration at a school usually hiding things. schools should have people that reach out to parents and teach them what they need to do to help their child succeed. and also need to be taught their rights and how schools are supposed to be ran. parents need to be told more then just what the schools want to tell them because there is lack of information there, like how much say they really do have at their kids school. schools should be ran by people who care not just administrators making all the money that should be going to the schools.
user avatar
anamendozasantiago February 5, 2015 at 7:58 pm
Parenting classes are awesome to increase parent participation and improve education at home:)
user avatar
David Siegrist1 April 30, 2017 at 12:02 pm
Parenting? Too limiting. We need to focus on the entire family!
user avatar
anahsrad January 12, 2015 at 10:33 pm
The YouTube video did not play saying that the user has changed the account - can you redirect me, please?
user avatar
Jeff Camp - Founder January 13, 2015 at 9:22 am
Thanks for the catch! The ephemeral nature of the web is a constant challenge of this work. Readers, if you see a problem, please do leave a comment like this one -- it's quite helpful to us.
user avatar
Jeff Camp - Founder November 12, 2014 at 9:24 am
When parents struggle to make ends meet, children suffer. There is a strong connection between family financial security and life outcomes for children. Supporting children, argues the Annie E. Casey Foundation, implies supporting families. Its 2014 report Creating Opportunities for Families http://www.childrennow.org/uploads/documents/casey_KC_2gen.pdf describes the practical interconnections between school, communities, work, child care services and transportation. This report is part of the Kids Count series, a useful and credible resource for understanding the real-world meaning of data about children living in poverty.
user avatar
Paul Muench October 31, 2014 at 7:51 pm
On a minor note, thank you for connecting the dots on Parent Trigger and the new API (EPI?). I now better understand the democrats political urgency behind that effort. Its a good reminder to look around for side effects the next time some new educational change is claiming to make a big difference yet doesn't seem to do much of substance.
I think having a growth mindset is the most important thing a parent can "do" for his children's education. Working day after day with no apparent change can be frustrating. But somehow learning seems to work that way. It seems as if a person needs time for all the pieces of understanding to align and become solid and then all of a sudden he can perform. So much of learning is "invisible" to a parent that faith and patience is necessary to help your child become somebody new. Having a growth mindset can seem a false prophesy at first, but that's only because it's really a self-fulfilling prophesy. Telling parents its real, its genuine, you can believe in it is a great first step.
user avatar
Arati N June 19, 2014 at 2:03 pm
Most important role parents can play is to be engaged and involved in their child's school. Simply complaining about what's wrong has a negative impact, but providing and being part of a solution is a step in the forward direction.
user avatar
David Siegrist1 April 30, 2017 at 12:03 pm
Yes! If you are not a part of the solution, you are part of the problem!
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