Parents as partners in schooling: the current state of affairs.

Overview of 9 OECD Nations

Parents and other family members are children's first educators, responsible for children's early socialization, and for setting a mental and emotional foundation upon which the school and community will build. Families and school exist within a local community, and the education and socialization of most young people take place within this three-fold context.

The relationship between families and schools in member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is complex and shifting. Both families and schools are intimately involved in educating young children - but how they identify, conduct and share their responsibilities varies among the countries according to societal customs, and in relation to changing economic and political climates.

As formal education becomes ever more important, its methods more diverse and its purposes more complex, there is a growing recognition that family, school and community each have a role to play in the process of educating children. This recognition dovetails with other changes that have taken place over the last decade - a general movement toward decentralization and local autonomy, and the realization that, in the future, most people will have to keep learning throughout their lives. As a result of these shifts, some parents and policymakers would like schools to become more outward-looking; they would prefer that schools' walls become more "permeable." The broad aim is for families, schools and communities to work together in partnerships that are better understood, more effectively planned and more fruitful than those of the past.

In 1997, the OECD's Center for Educational Research and Innovation conducted a cross-national study of schools and families. Nine member countries participated: Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom (England and Wales) and the United States. The study is the fourth in the OECD series, What Works in Innovation in Education. The studies do not categorize or exhaustively analyze each country's policies and practices, but rather compare their approaches and identify strengths and weaknesses. The Center hopes to identify useful models of innovation and good practice.

Why Involve Parents?

The importance of building partnerships in education is becoming more widely recognized, as young people must be educated to a higher standard than ever before. Families want to support their children's learning more effectively, work with teachers and have a greater choice of schools. At the same time, many countries are adopting policies to integrally involve parents in the education process. This is partly because parental involvement is associated with higher student achievement, partly because many governments want to make schools more accountable and partly because parents themselves are applying pressure.

OECD member countries are increasing parents' involvement in education for a number of different reasons - reasons that are embedded in each nation's political culture. The reasons given by officials and policy analysts in the nine countries in this study fall mainly into the following broad, interrelated categories:

* Democracy: In many countries, parental involvement in education is considered a right. Some, like France, Germany and Denmark, have written such a right into law decades ago, although the nature of this right varies according to country.

* Accountability: This is a more market-oriented concept than democracy, and is embraced most enthusiastically by England, Wales, Canada and the United States. Parental involvement is viewed not only or primarily as a parental right, but also as a means of making schools more accountable to the society that funds them.

* Consumer choice: Some believe that parents, as consumers, should be able to choose their children's schools and influence how they operate. The underlying assumption is that if parents think of themselves as consumers, they are more likely to be clear about what they want and more critical of what they are being offered. In turn, this assumption may push schools into meeting the children's and families' needs more effectively.

* Lever for raising standards: Findings from large-scale studies in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States show that schools in which pupils do well (in terms of both academic attainment and attitudes toward learning) are characterized by good home-school relations.

* Tackling disadvantages and improving equity: This reason is related to the one above, but refers more explicitly to raising individual children's performance by showing their parents how to support them more effectively at home. This is particularly important when there are cultural differences between the education system and the family.

* Addressing social problems: In some countries, policymakers are turning to schools and to families for solutions to teenagers' drug and alcohol abuse, sexual promiscuity and high pregnancy rates, child abuse, violence and gang-based street cultures.

* Resources: Not only can parents raise extra funds for schools, they also can be a very cost-effective way of mobilizing human resources - whether as helpers on school trips, coaches or assistants in sporting activities, or teachers' aides in the classroom.

Parents have their own set of reasons for wanting to be involved, which do not always mesh with those of the policymakers. Parents' reasons for participating vary according to the age of the child and the type of school but they can be broadly categorized as follows:

* Student achievement: Parents wish to improve their children's performance and want to find out how best to do so.

* Parental education: The need to support a child's learning compels some parents to attend classes (at the school or elsewhere) that cover aspects of the curriculum, or provide information on good parenting, or offer joint literacy activities.

* Communication: Parents want to find out more about their children's progress, to find out what happens each day in school and seek to increase the school's openness.

* Influence: Parents wish to influence the curriculum, or to transmit family values and cultures in the school.

* Support for the school: Parents recognize that schools often need funds and teachers are overburdened. They may offer to help by fundraising or assisting in other ways.

* Support from the school: Parents sometimes need individual help and advice during a family crisis, or they may be interested in attending - with other parents-lectures or workshops on problems that challenge all families (e.g., drug abuse, health issues, the difficulties of adolescence, parenting issues, etc.).

Different Types of Involvement

Countries vary a great deal in the extent of parental involvement; most are strong in some aspects and weak in others. No one country in the study encouraged parental participation at all levels of the system. There is, of course, only a limited amount that governments can achieve through legislation, but the main ways that laws can have an impact include: giving parents more power in policymaking and governance at both the national and local levels; mandating the establishment of parents' associations; offering parents more choice of schools (although complete freedom of choice is never really possible); and requiring local authorities and schools to communicate certain information to parents.

The OECD report focuses on two main aspects of parental participation in education: collective involvement and individual involvement.

Collective involvement may occur at any level in the system - nationaL local or the school itself. There are four main aspects to this type of participation:

* The representation of parents on policymaking or advisory bodies and in school governance. The nine countries differ substantially in the decision-making power that they give to parents at different levels in the system. At the national or state levels, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland and Spain all allow parents, by law, to sit on key policymaking committees. A number of Canadian provinces recently have set up parent advisory committees. Similarly, some states in the United States have parental representation on district school board advisory committees. In England, Wales and Japan, however, parents are not represented on any national policymaking or advisory committees.

Parental involvement at the school level is similarly varied. Recent OECD research on education indicators estimated the extent to which parents are involved in decision-making processes in primary schools (OECD, 1997). Across the countries involved in the survey, about 60 percent of primary pupils are in schools that involve parents in school planning, and 57 percent are in schools that allow parents to participate in financial or organizational decisions. Less than 25 percent of students attends a school where the parents can influence the hiring or firing of educators.

Countries differ in how they view school councils. In Japan and France, for example, individual schools do not have governing bodies. In Germany, school councils - on which parents are represented - can influence, under certain circumstances, the appointment of school principals. Denmark, Ireland and Spain allow their schools to be more autonomous; hence, their school boards, on which parents sit, have real influence on decision-making. The process is probably most advanced in England and Wales, where individual school governing bodies - which include parents - make virtually all the significant non-curricular decisions.

* Parents' associations and class councils. In virtually all of the countries in this study, parents are represented by national parents' associations. Most are built up through a system of parent councils or associations at the school level. Such associations are not compulsory, but most governments have encouraged them in recent years. Some parent organizations are longstanding. In France and Japan, for example, they are an accepted way for people to enter politics.

In Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland and Spain, members of national parents' associations have a right to sit on key national committees and give their opinions and advice. Class councils are a common form of participation in Denmark, France, Germany and Spain, but they are barely heard of in the other countries. The usual structure is simple: all parents of children in a particular class form a group and meet regularly with the teacher. In Denmark, where teachers often stay with the same group of children throughout nine years of folkeskole, parents and teachers may get to know each other very well, and parents often have a significant say.

* Cooperation between school and community. Most governments also strive to encourage closer relationships between schools and local communities. As the Education Minister of the 26 OECD countries said, "Schools are a major social asset and should become community learning centers offering a variety of programs and learning methods to a diverse range of students, and [they should] remain open for long hours throughout the year" (OECD, 1997).

In most countries the policy to open schools to the community has not moved much beyond the level of rhetoric. Virtually every country has an array of impressive pilot projects and local links between school and community, but these are rarely woven into the fabric of the system. Yet, schools can be very appropriate centers for building community spirit by offering sports facilities, meeting space and adult education classes, as well as other personal and social development services. Partnerships between schools and local employers also can be an important source of resources, energy and good will.

Recent research that examined the integration of services for children who are at risk of failing in school (estimated at between 15 and 30 percent in most OECD countries) contains numerous examples of successful cooperation between schools and a variety of community services (OECD, 1997). Ireland's Home-School-Community Liaison Scheme (which serves pupils and supports parents in disadvantaged areas), the Danish policy of designating about one in ten folkeskoles as local cultural centers for the community, and the French ZEPS (education priority zones) system are good examples of innovative central government initiatives to link home, school and community.

* Parental influence on the curriculum. Every country in this study, except for Canada and the United States, has a national curriculum that outlines what should be taught in schools. The extent to which these national curricula can be influenced or modified, however, varies a great deal. In Denmark, Ireland and Spain, parents are represented on national curriculum committees, which establish or revive the curriculum. In Germany, every state has a Parents' Council, which advises the Ministry of Culture on education issues. In other countries, such as England, Wales and Japan, parents have no say in the content or structure of the curriculum at the national level. In Canada and the United States, curricula are established at the state or province level, usually without any input from parents. Many Canadian provinces are currently restructuring, however, and some are setting up parent advisory committees, which will be consulted on such matters.

In addition to collective involvement, the OECD report focuses on individual involvement, which in most countries is more widespread, and has more direct impact on instruction, usually relating to three possible activities:

* Psycho-social support. The support that schools provide to families may be in the form of parental education. Some of the most exciting individual projects involve offering parents short courses at the school (in subjects such as children's health, children's learning styles or parental challenges). Such courses can increase the confidence and competence of young parents, especially those who are economically disadvantaged, and encourage them to become more involved in other ways. Parents who attend workshops or courses may move on to more demanding educational programs, such as ones to improve their own literacy or numeracy. Many parents, after being empowered by this type of intervention, then earn credits at the local college or adult education center. Sometimes they also become involved in other local community initiatives.

Schools also can offer support at moments of family crisis, as well as intensive cooperative planning with parents of children who have special education needs. In many countries such partnerships represent excellent models of how joint approaches could work for all children.

* Communication between home and school. The most widespread form of communication between the school and home is, of course, reporting to parents on their children's progress. Most countries mandate their schools to report two or three times a year, but the forms of their reports vary widely. Normally, schools can and do offer more frequent updates, and parents can request a discussion with the child's teacher. Other forms of communication include the use of two-way homework journals, newsletters and teachers' home visits. This last method is common in some countries (such as Denmark and Japan), but is rare in other countries, and tends to be seen as a sign of serious problems.

* Parental involvement with school work - in the classroom and at home. The question of parents' presence in the classroom - whether as unskilled help or as teachers' aides - is often controversial. Although there is now a more widespread recognition that parents are children's first educators, not all teachers take the idea of partnership in the classroom seriously, and many parents are unaware of this new way of thinking. A number of initiatives (for example, in Canada, England, Wales, Ireland and the United States) demonstrate that both teachers and children can benefit if parents are available to support the teacher in the classroom - especially during the child's early years. This may not be true in other systems. Primary education in France, Germany and Japan, for example, is delivered very effectively with virtually no parental input of this kind. These three countries, however, are relatively homogeneous societies with a strong consensus as to the purpose and process of education. It may be that parental involvement of this type is more crucial in more pluralistic societies, especially in areas of socioeconomic disadvantage.

Regardless, the importance of parents helping their children with school work at home is now undisputed. The latest figures collected for the OECD's education indicators project suggest that about 75 percent of primary pupils (in the 12 countries surveyed) go to schools that regularly engage parents in actively supporting their children's learning at home (OECD, 1997).

Conclusions

Based on this study's findings, governments wishing to increase parents' involvement in schools should:

* Develop methods to publicize and replicate successful strategies so that parents, students and teachers across the country - and in other countries, too - can learn about and benefit from them. Countries that have policies and commitments to increase parental involvement have an impressive range of successful projects or experiments. Too often, however, the lessons learned from successful innovations are not adequately disseminated or built into the system as a whole. Time and effort are wasted when parents and teachers must reinvent the wheel.

* Recognize what all partners bring to the collaboration, in order to encourage mutual respect. Individual teachers and parents must learn how to negotiate with each other, handle differences of opinion, and understand the importance of each other's roles, without losing confidence in their own skills and leadership.

* Provide training and present a clear legal framework setting out rights and responsibilities. Clear guidelines and training ensure that all partners understand the opportunities and limits of their collaboration. The most fruitful approaches often involve teachers and parents training together.

* Identify parents' agendas in order to make best use of their energy and resources. Making assumptions about the needs and desires of parents or the wider community may lead to speedier policy formation, but can backfire. A successful agenda needs to be based on the views and experiences of a wide range of community groups and agencies, as well as a broad cross-section of parents. It should not be assumed that parents will always want what the current government thinks best.

Reference

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. (1997). Parents as partners in schooling. Paris: Author.

Kathleen Kelley-Laine is Project Officer, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Paris, France.