Implement a “Connecting Parents with Learning Project” in Your School

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According Education, Education research over the past three decades has established a direct correlation between increased parent involvement and increased student achievement.1 Diana Hiatt-Michael, an emeritus professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that teachers' efforts to involve families promote better student attendance, higher graduation rates from high school, fewer retentions in the same grade, increased levels of parent and student satisfaction with school, reduced number of negative behavior reports, and higher achievement scores on reading and math tests.2 The benefits of parental involvement are obvious, but it is important to take a look at how we involve our parents. Most likely, the parents of our students really want to be involved but often do not know how to get involved beyond attendance at concerts and volunteer efforts. Do we as music educators know how to involve our parents in the learning process? The fact is that we do a pretty good job of keeping parents informed about our programs and involving parents through volunteer efforts, such as booster clubs. As valuable as these efforts are, why not seek ways to go beyond public relations and try a teaching approach that involves parents in actively learning content along with their children? As part of a graduate course I taught last year, music teachers in the class involved parents with learning by implementing Connecting Parents with Learning Projects (CPLPs).