Times are tense for schools. While they want their students to be well prepared for the coming years of the 21st century, there is an almost ceaseless anxiety caused by unrelenting news and data illustrating how children can get hurt--physically or emotionally. Beyond underscoring the challenges of providing physical safety, data also reveal the…

For over a decade, students and parents in New York City have organized in coalitions across boroughs to fight for an equitable, just school system for all public school students. In a time when the Department of Education (DOE) centralized all power in the hands of one mayor and one schools chancellor, the Urban Youth Collaborative (UYC) and the…

This paper evaluates the role that an after-school may play in the educational outcomes of children living in poor suburbs. Previous evaluations have focused on average effects, with mixed findings. A possible explanation of these inconclusive findings is that after-school programmes may have heterogeneous effects. Our hypothesis is that the…

Parents play a key role in children's academic success. In this article, the author describes a sample of India's middle- and working-class parents' involvement in children's academic activities and the nature of support they provide for their children. In each case, everyday activities at home, often replicating school-based activities, indicated…

What do we mean when we say we want to put children at the centre of policy? What are the moral justifications for this approach? Has it become harder for us to understand this concept, when in practice paid work has been at the centre? In part confusion arises because the unpaid work of caring for children is invisible until it is marketized. In…

This article addresses the need for novice teachers to receive exposure and experiences related to family engagement as part of their academic preparation to better facilitate their actual parent involvement practices. In a graduate-level parent involvement in education course, early childhood educators had an opportunity to engage in a variety of…

Research Findings: This study explored the association between the home literacy environment (HLE), conceptualized as comprising parents' reading beliefs and home literacy practices, and preschoolers' reading skills and reading interest. It also identified factors in the HLE that predict emerging reading competence and motivation to read. A total…

With the reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA), focus has shifted as more states have begun to use a process of identifying learning disabilities based on a child's response to scientific, research-based interventions (i.e., RTI). The decision-making process has been converted into a series of…

Although many studies have been conducted on the relationship between parental involvement and student achievement, the effect of parental involvement in the U.S. Virgin Islands had not been substantiated empirically. It should not be assumed that research conducted in the United States or other geographic areas will necessarily apply to the…

Family engagement in the education of young children is associated with numerous positive outcomes for those children, and parents and other family members play an important role as "teachers" during the time children spend outside the classroom. Home-based involvement (e.g., a parent-led educational activity), school-based involvement…

This policy brief presents evidence demonstrating a positive association between parental involvement in school activities and student performance in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) 2011. This association, which was evident in most of the 54 education systems analyzed, indicates that students enrolled in schools with…

Many educators across the nation are struggling to teach and inspire students who are susceptible to school drop-out. These specific students are commonly dealing with poor parental involvement, low socioeconomic status, substance abuse issues, teenage pregnancy, behavioral infractions, and/ or mental health issues, which can affect them socially,…

Educators across the United States have searched for avenues to improve students' mathematics achievement since the publication of "A Nation at Risk" (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983) which reported that American students were behind students in other countries academically. Recent legislation, No Child Left Behind…

Teaching is a highly demanding career, in which as many as 50% of teachers who teach in low-income schools, and more than 30% of teachers regardless of school's income exit the profession in the first five years. First 3 is an induction program for teachers that are in their first three years in the teaching career. This report evaluates the…

Parents strongly influence their children's development, and prekindergarten and early elementary programs--especially those serving children at risk for low achievement because of their family backgrounds--often feature programming to support parents' role in their children's learning. Despite the prevalence of such programs, however, we have…