School Involvement and the Working Poor

Abstract

IN THE May Research column, I described some ways in which rich schools and poor schools differ in the literacy experiences they offer young children. In the winter 2000 issue of the American Educational Research Journal, S. Jody Heymann and Alison Earle of the Harvard School of Public Health report on how poverty influences another aspect of school life: parent involvement. Heymann and Earle point out that comes in a number of forms. It can occur from parents' developing and using skills to support effective learning; engaging in home-to-school communication about student progress; volunteering at school; assisting their children with homework; becoming involved in school governance issues and decisions; and coordinating and integrating community services that will enhance the learning experience. . . . Numerous studies have shown that, regardless of how it is defined, parental involvement is important to children's success at school. The researchers began by examining the working conditions of substantially employed mothers. Substantially employed is a term taken from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and means that the mother was not self-employed, had held at least one job within 30 days of the 1994 survey, and worked at least 20 hours a week. (When the researchers used cutoffs of 30, 35, and 40 hours a week, the results were unchanged. The NLSY did not collect employment data on fathers.) Twelve hundred and eighty of the mothers completed the Behavior Problems Index (BPI), a 28-item questionnaire about peer conflict, antisocial behavior, anxiety or depression, and dependency - behaviors that a child might have exhibited in the 30 days before the mother completed the BPI. The NLSY had also administered the Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT) in reading and math. Of the 1,280 mothers, 582 had a child in the top quartile of the BPI. Two hundred and eighty had a child in the bottom quartile of the PIAT reading test, and 334 had a child in the bottom quartile of the PIAT math test. One analysis the researchers conducted looked at the working conditions of mothers who had a child in the lowest quartile in PIAT reading. When divided into families living in poverty and families above the poverty line, substantial differences appeared in the amount of time a parent had available to become involved with the school - or even with the child. Forty percent of the families above the poverty line had no paid sick leave, while 67% of those below the poverty line had no paid sick leave. Smaller differences appeared between the two groups for paid vacation leave and for the ability to leave the job site. Similar findings existed for mothers with children in the lowest quartile on the PIAT math. The largest differences in the availability of mothers appeared for the mothers below the poverty line whose children also acted out often enough to land them in the highest quartile on the BPI: 71% of these mothers had no paid sick leave (compared to 36% of mothers not in poverty whose children were also in the top quartile on the BPI), 46% had no paid vacation, and 67% could not leave their job sites. The researchers offer a number of suggestions as to how to ameliorate the problem. Holding meetings outside of school hours is one possibility, but this imposes an added burden on teachers, many of whom are mothers, too. The Family Medical Leave Act could be expanded. It currently covers only 50% of families, and the leave is for up to 24 hours, but since it is unpaid, it would be of less help to poor families. The researchers are most enthusiastic about two other possibilities: Alternatively, paid family leave could be provided through an insurance program. National survey data have shown that the majority of Americans would be in favor of family leave insurance. An insurance program could be modeled after current public insurance programs, such as workman's compensation, or private insurance programs that are typically offered through workplaces, such as disability insurance. …