Provides an overview of the Whole Village Project in Boston (Massachusetts), a two-year project that fosters partnerships among parents, teachers, administrators, and community members to bring about comprehensive reform in these urban schools. Each school identified its own most urgent problem and then developed a comprehensive approach through…

Forty parents, representing five different Asian groups living in California and Colorado, were interviewed about their attitudes toward their children's education. Found that, in general, Asian parents are interested in their children's school progress and are willing to help at school. Suggests ways to help teachers capitalize on this interest…

Guidelines for implementing a transdisciplinary (TD) team approach for delivering special education services to rural students cover team development, assessment, program planning, implementation of service delivery, training of team members, role release, ongoing monitoring, and regular team meetings. Includes a checklist for evaluating teams…

Discusses the severe underrepresentation of children of color in public school programs for the gifted and their concomitant overrepresentation in Special Education programs. The authors suggest policy, legal, and educational strategies for assuring equitable representation of black students in gifted programs and otherwise reversing…

Discusses an approach to parent-teacher conferences that involves fifth graders as equal partners with their parents and teacher. Students update their portfolios for the student-parent-teacher conferences, ask and answer questions about their achievements, and discuss their work with their parents. Parents are expected to answer questions about…

Compared the involvement of 28 mothers and their spouses who worked varying distances from their day-care centers. Found that mothers were significantly more involved in the center than fathers, even after statistically controlling for distance to the workplace and occupational status. (TJQ)

Outlines some strategies for collaboration between staff and parents, particularly in efforts surrounding black parents' involvement, in the early preschool education of their children. It discusses the empowerment of parents, which includes dealing with changing family needs, increasing parental awareness, and confronting differing cultural…

Several programs started in Passaic, New Jersey are beginning to show evidence of success. Teen Institute of the Garden State is a program designed to help students build confidence by working in the community. Teen pregnancy and the drop-out rate are addressed in a program called Graduation, Reality, and Dual-Role Skills. (MLF)

Presents effective strategies to enhance parental support for school second-language (L2) programs, focusing on orientating parents to L2 programs, capitalizing on current international events, direct parent-teacher cooperation, and involving parents in cultural projects. Techniques for engendering support for Ukrainian L2 language programs are…

Urban at-risk elementary school students (n=72) who experienced both parent involvement (PI) and reciprocal peer tutoring interventions or the PI intervention alone reported higher self-concept and greater gains in mathematics achievement than students in practice control conditions. (SLD)

The relationship between parent involvement and school choice was studied with 575 parents in urban Catholic, single-focus, and multiple-focus magnet schools. Religion, income, and ethnicity were important in understanding parents' reasons for school choice, and school type was a major factor in parent choice. (SLD)

A controlled, parent-targeted intervention followed two cohorts of students (1,034 fifth graders and 1,244 seventh graders) to determine the effects of encouraging parents to intervene in risk factors for adolescent tobacco and alcohol use. Such programs should focus on protective factors rather than on control of risk factors. (SLD)

Describes a hands-on activity designed to help young children begin to understand the feelings of people who are discriminated against. Provides detailed description of the small group discussion that follows the exercise, a discussion that is considered to be essential to the activity. (BB)

Two traditions that have combined to discourage participation of African-American parents in special education procedures are described: a deficit view of African-American families and a deficit view of children's learning difficulties. Including parents in assessment, placement, policy making, and advocacy is recommended to restore the balance of…

A school superintendent describes the restructuring in his Springfield (Massachusetts) school district. The effort to desegregate from the perspectives of race, color, ethnic background, and gender has involved organizational, pedagogical, social, attitudinal, and political transformation. Emphasis is given to the district's choice system. (SLD)