The 10th School Revisited: Are School/Family/Community Partnerships on the Reform Agenda Now?

Abstract

Mr. Davies makes series of recommendations that add up to plea for changing the culture of schools so that is way of life that offers benefits to all who are engaged and becomes tradition rather than funded project. Visit 10 schools randomly in the United States and you will discover in nine of them that most teachers and administrators still hold parents at arm's length. You will see many of the tried-and-true forms of parent involvement - an open house in the fall, two or three short parent conferences year, parents attending student performances and sports events, some teachers calling parents when child is misbehaving, an annual multicultural fair, parent association that raises money, and business partner that donates equipment. But you'll observe few if any parents or community representatives actively involved in the school's efforts to make changes in curriculum, teaching, student rules, homework policies, or scheduling. I WROTE those words in 1996 in an Education Week commentary. I went on to assert that the 10th school would be different - and better. My comments were widely circulated by the Institute for Responsive Education and provoked considerable reaction. It is time to revisit my 10th school claim and ask what has happened in the intervening years. Because of the rapid advance of the high standards/accountability/testing movement (49 states have new standards, 48 have testing programs geared to higher standards, and many states are threatening to take over failing schools), I expected that there would be substantial action toward involving families and the community in schools. I also expected that the growing national concern - expressed by politicians, business leaders, and educators - about the huge, widening gaps in achievement between white and African American and Latino children would prod more districts, schools, and parent and community organizations to recognize that schools can't close these gaps alone. I thought that more parties would act on the fact that substantial engagement of home and community is likely to increase the chances of success of any reform effort. If rational planning didn't produce action, I thought that desperation might spur new strategies. Have these expectations been realized? The answer is yes and no. Some things have changed. Now it seems that everybody talks about, studies, and advocates parent and family involvement. The whole village idea is widely embraced, and partnership has become mantra. There is hardly politician, educational leader, organization, or conference that doesn't highlight in some way families, parent involvement, and partnership. They are now the equivalent of motherhood and apple pie. This surge of interest in and acceptance of the ideas of parent involvement and is gratifying. But practices in most schools have hardly caught up with the flourishing rhetoric. I still stand behind my 10th school assertion, and some of my colleagues in the parent advocacy world would say that I am much too generous with this assessment. There has certainly been an increase in business involvement in many places, and more local education foundations are providing outside financial help. Some districts and schools have increased parent or community involvement, but this effort is still too often seen as side show, not directly linked to school reform aimed at increasing student achievement and closing gaps in student performance. There are some scattered developments focused on involving parents in closing the achievement gaps that seem promising. For example, seven urban principals are cited in the Heritage Foundation's No Excuses report as setting high standards in low-income schools. Nearly all of them actively with parents to make the home center of learning and to make the school a force for stability in an impoverished community.1 Other positive examples include the expanded family centers in the schools in Rochester, New York; small family literacy project in Boston; and work by action teams in some of the schools in Joyce Epstein's School, Family, and Community Partnerships Network. …