Parental Involvement in High School Education

Editor's note: For decades Louisiana has been in the bottom five states in educational achievement. Governor Foster and others are working hard to reverse that trend. Louisiana's high stakes testing programs for our children and the results we are getting are getting national recognition. But we have more to do. At the beginning of this school year I am offering this article on parental involvement in the education of older pupils to our effort to help our state's people become more successful!

THE CURRENT STATE OF PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT

It is generally observed that parental involvement in their children's school life decreases as the child progresses. A few remained involved Kindergarten through secondary school, especially the "sports families," but other parents who were active in their children's primary education seem to disappear from the scene in later grades. There may be one or more reasons for this, such as, the schools themselves are farther from the home, the curriculum is more sophisticated and challenging to the parent, there are more teachers to deal with, some parents (especially mothers) may have entered the workforce, and the growing independence of the students from their parents (Cotton and Wikelund, 1989).

Where parents are active in their children's education, the activities may change from elementary to secondary grades. Common examples given by Cotton and Wikelund (1989) for parental involvement in secondary school are helping students make plans for college or careers and helping them choose appropriate high school preparatory courses, attending school-sponsored functions, parental conferences about behavior and needed improvements and continuing to monitor homework.

BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW

Nancy Jean Smith (2001) writes about "Transformative Cooperation" between teachers and parents to encourage parental involvement. A key factor in Smith's Transformative Cooperation is teacher attitude. She says that teachers must acknowledge that it is a privilege to teach another person's child. And she writes that teachers must respect parents as "constructors of knowledge." Specific behaviors that she suggests for teachers include persistence and politeness even when the teacher's patience is being tested. Smith suggests that teachers go to social functions and activities where they will have contact with the families of students. In the classroom, Smith says that the curriculum should relate to the students' home lives.

R. Greg Jennings (2001) suggests two specific ways that parents can be involved in education. He suggests that parents be used as resource persons, particularly as after-school teachers or program leaders in hobbies, such as, art, crafts, simple machine repair or gardening. Jennings also writes about involving the family in language arts classes. Family members could visit classes to tell their family stories as part of lessons in storytelling, history or sociology. Students could follow-up by making books documenting their family story.

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