Presenter:Sandra L. Christenson

Presenter:Sandra L. Christenson

Date: Friday, November 15, 2002

Time: 12:45 PM – 1:45 PM

Title:Families, Educators, and the Family-School Partnership: Issues or Opportunities for Promoting Children’s Learning Competence?

(12:00)

Ron Palomares: Good Afternoon. And welcome back to our forth presentation whose focus is going to be on families. You heard that this is going to be a working conference and I am really excited about the work that has been yesterday as well as the work that has been going on today. I am Ron Palomares, and I am one of the conference co-planners and I have the distinct pleasure of introducing our next speaker.

Before I do that, first, I would like to say something to our remote sites to let them know that the Master Lists for the Opportunities/Threats have been posted on the Internet now. So, you can go ahead and download those Opportunities/Threats that we have all put together – both onsite and the remote sites.

We have had a treat to really have three nationally recognized speakers who have already come in to talk with us both today and yesterday. That trend continues with Sandy. Dr. Sandy Christenson is a professor of educational and child psychology and she is also the director of the school psychology training program at the University of Minnesota. Sandy’s current work focuses on ways to promote the role of families in educating students. Her primary research is on school and home partnerships. Her work is far reaching and widely read.

Sandy has published extensively about the theory, research, and strategies for engaging parents in schools and learning. This impacts not only what we think or what we are taught, but it also impacts what we do. She was a principle investigator of a personnel preparation grant that focused on family/school partnerships. She is now the leading researcher at the University of Minnesota’s extension services program entitled, “All Parents are Teachers.” In order to allow more time for her presentation, I am not going to go into the extensive and impressive list of publications and honors that Sandy has received. But I am sure that you find that her work has an impact in what you have been trained to do or how you work today. It is truly my pleasure to introduce to you, Dr. Sandy Christenson.

(14:04)

Christenson: Well good afternoon to those in the audience and good morning, possibly, to some of those people in our remote sites, if I am keeping me Eastern Standard Time and my Western Time straight. I’d like to thank the conference planners for this opportunity to share my ideas and I want to tell all of you how eager I am to see how we as a discipline will shape these ideas.

I am experiencing a bit of déjà vu. Let me take you back twenty-two years. This was Spring Hill and I was a graduate student at that time. Judy Elpert at NYU will recall that I was one of the van drivers. I had to work my way into Spring Hill. To graduate students listening, our future in school psychology, I hope that one of you will have this privilege because I know that school psychology will continue to engage in self-reflection of our practices because we really are interested in improving our services for children, youth and families.

I also want to publicly thank Sue Sheridan for her collaboration and influence on my thinking. She has simply been a wonderful colleague and friend. Thank you, Sue.

You know the title of this presentation I believe. It is “Families, Educators and the Family School Partnership: Issues or Opportunities for Promoting Children’s Learning Competence.” It is impossible to say in thirty-five minutes what one can write in fifty-plus pages. My goal is to capture the essence of that paper. So let me begin with a few random, introductory comments before I describe our children and families.

(16:10)

There is no question that we have made progress in working with families. And our progress is really reflected in an increased awareness of the effects of and contributions by families to educational outcomes. Home learning environments make a difference in terms of our students’ progress in schools. We have various models for family involvement. We know the importance of establishing shared goals and monitoring child and adolescent progress. We have, really, a sound awareness of the characteristics of collaborative relationships. And we can generate a long list of home and school-based activities that can engage families in education.

(17:02)

Despite our progress however, our job is not done. Daily in our schools across the nation we see examples of extreme social and physical distance between families and educators. We know we have diminished resources for implementing family/school programs. We have challenges in reaching all families, many of whom are interested, but uninvolved. We have challenges in addressing the needs of English Language Learners. And the one that is nearest and dearest to my heart, is that we have far too little focus on the interaction process that yields a strong family/school relationship.

(17:44)

Some essentials with respect to thinking about the family/school connection to enhance children’s learning. First we have to think about the goal. The goals is health promotion, prevention and competence enhancement for students, whether in academic, social, emotional or behavioral domains. When we do this we think about the affordance value of the learning environment for the student; and that is the total learning environment. Thus, it includes home and school. We are interested in how home and school provides supports and the opportunities for the child to meet the challenges and demands of schooling.

(18:29)

In the paper I tried to make a strong argument for the fact that we need to pay attention to the effect of current macro-systemic influences; what we often think about as our current landscape of educational reform. As we work with parents, a critical question is “What are we doing to help students attain the demands of schooling set byhigh school exit exams, No Child Left Behind, or the wonderful literacy emphasis through Reading First legislation for students in grades k-3?”

(19:07)

I am hopeful that our discipline will be instrumental in taking a different focus with families. A very common question is “How do we involve families?” Our literature is filled with tips to involve parents or tips for parents to help their children succeed in school, including the most recently developed materials, which are excellent, by the US Department of Education. However, I better question I contend is “How do we create a culture of success for students?” meaning improved learning experiences, improved progress and success in schools. To do so we must attend to what children learn in and out of school. We must refocus the connection for parents and educators in terms of enhancing learning competencies.

(19:58)

Our focus also must also recognize that the benefits for student success extend far beyond the notion of involving parents in activities. We need to think about the benefits of establishing shared goals to counteract the information from peers and media. We need to circumvent the blame between home and school. We need to pull together our resources to better understand the total picture of the child’s learning pattern and our ability then to be able to carry out home/school interventions.

(20:36)

Family/school relationships from my point of view are integral in children’s optimal school success. Whether described in terms of establishing shared meanings orgoals, protective factors or ways to foster resilience. To create and sustain these productive relationships, we are going to need to understand the impact of at least three things. First, the impact of systems thinking;we need to identify the opportunity children have to learn in and out of school, and how the assessment/intervention link empowers parents and educators to help students meet the demands and challenges of schooling. We also need to understand the impact of opportunity focused attitudes and actions.

Just consider for a moment the ethnic and cultural diversity in our country and in our schools. Is the change in ethnic diversity and issue; one that implies a barrier and/or a problem for which a solution must be found? Or, is this an opportunity for our discipline to close the gaps for educational outcomes for specific student? Is this an opportunity to embrace the richness of culture and learn ways to enhance the opportunities for all students? Third, we really need to ask family involvement for what purpose? We should be identifying who are our disengaged learners and forget about the business of enhancing outcomes for these students? This will require us to extend our thinking beyond academic engaged time, albeit time on task is very important. But equally important is the student’s cognitive engagement. Are they a self-regulated learner? Are they taking responsibility for their learning? Are they using learning strategies to complete tasks? Can they explain the processes involved in that task. Behavioral engagement is important. Unfortunately attendance is a problem in many of our schools. We need to assist with attendance as well as classroom participation as well as participation in extracurricular activities.

And finally, as psychologists, I know we’re interested in psychological engagement: students’ sense of belonging, their school connectedness, attachment and bonding. Teacher/student relationships also fall into this area as well as peer relationships. Framing family involvement and this connection with families in this way, through engagement, I think allows us to see that we are really interested in promoting students’ academic success and mental health outcomes.

(23:26)

Let’s focus for a moment on statistics. For those in the web-cast group, we are on slide 8.

We currently have 70.4 million children under the age of 18 and this represents 26% of our population. Some of our statistics describe the changing population and family context in which children are living. We know we have increases for children with a foreign born parent. In 2001, this had increased to 19%. 40% of those parents have less than a high school degree. We have increases in ethnic diversity with the number of Hispanic children increasing faster than any other group. 75% of poor children live in working families. We also have a sharp increase in families headed by unmarried partners. 33% of births in the year 2000 were to unmarried women. Less than a quarter of American households consist of nuclear families.

Some of our statistics represent challenges for already stressed schools. The number of English speaking children has doubled since 1979. This is true even in Minnesota and I recognize that Minnesota is represented in many people minds by the movie Fargo. But, you do need to know that in the year 2002, we had 48,680 minority language students who were identified as ELL. Other statistics demonstrate that support for families vary and they are often less than desirable.

Affordable childcare - we know that 25% of children in grades 4 through 8 regularly care for themselves after school.

(25:17)

The availability of after school programs - we know that low income children, children who live in homes where their income is 1,500 per month or less, are half as likely to participate in sports, lessons, or clubs as high income children, where their family incomes are 4,500 or more per month. This is quite sobering giving Clark’s data on the value of constructive learning activities for the academic achievement of low income students.

Affordable housing and shelter is a concern for many families. We know that we have homelessness increasing throughout the United States. The daily average for students living in shelters was estimated to be, in the Minneapolis schools, 600 students on average.

Some of our statistics indicate that families need support to assist their children’s adaptation to the demand of schooling. Let’s consider for a moment the high school exit exam. Data from 14 states showed that African American and Hispanic students, students on free and reduce lunch, students with disabilities, and students identified as ELL are the subgroups of students who perform well below the rate of the total population in terms of passing the high school exit exam on the first attempt.

Clearly the conditions of children’s lives vary. How do we use these statistics? Well never as an attribution for poor school performance. However, that is how these tests are being used daily in our schools and that is something we need to correct. We regularly collect data in this country, whether it is NAEP, the government reports on the conditions of education – an annual report that we can all secure and many of our school districts collect data. We need to use that data to identify students for systematic interventions, those for whom there is an achievement gap.

I am hopeful that we will design systemic interventions and evaluate their effectiveness for all students, particularly for targeted subgroups. By doing so, we will assist the evidenced-based interventions movement that is existing in school psychology. I am hopeful that we will view that data as an opportunity to find new ways to educate students and to support families in their role. Quite simply we have a wonderful opportunity to work with and learn from diverse families.

(28:15)

When I am in schools I often hear: “I never see that families I want to see. How can we reach the hard to reach or involve the hard to reach?” These comments reflect a serious omission. Namely, how educators have failed to analyze school practices that influence the degree to which parents will willingly participate. Parents’ responses should be viewed in interactions with educator practices. We can not view issues in isolation and yet issues for families dominate our discussions in school.

In the paper I suggested to you that when there is not a strong family/school connection there is, in reality, there are reasons for families, educators and the family/school partnership. Some of these represent access. You can think about those as structural or the opportunity to make contact. Others represent the psychological dimension which is the interpersonal piece or the relationship piece.

(29:18)

Very quickly, some issues for the families in terms of the structural . . . We often hear about childcare and transportation. But there are also psychological issues. Many parents feel inadequate to communicate with educators. They are also suspicious about the treatment from educators. And they also are quite frustrated with the lack of responsiveness we have had to their particular needs vis-à-vis their child’s education. But we can apply that same dichotomy to issues for educators. Clearly in terms of structural issues for educators: the lack of funding for family outreach programs and the lack of training for educators to maintain a partnership with families are critical for us to be able to attend to.

There are also psychological issues. Educators often use negative communication about students’ school performance, communicating only during a crisis. Many have doubts about the abilities of “certain families” to address schooling concerns. Many times educators fear conflict with families and then tend not to communicate at the first sign of a concern.

(30:38)

Issues for the family school relationship in terms of structural would be indicated by the limited time for communication and meaningful dialogue that both parents and educators want; the limited time for building trust; and the lack of a routine bidirectional communication system. But the psychological issues are equally important: limited use of perspective taking during problem solving or shared decision making and limiting impressions of the child to observations in only one environment. How many times have school psychologists been in a meeting where someone has said, “Oh those parents just don’t understand!” or “Those parents are too emotionally involved!” or “What’s wrong with those parents? How can’t they see how this child is responding in this classroom environment?” NO. They see the child at home. We see the child at school. We must try to co-construct that.

Another psychological issue is our failure to recognize the importance of preserving the family/school relationship across time. Unless students are different across the United States than they are in Minnesota because in Minnesota we have students that we have to be able to communicate with their families across school years. Do you know any of those students? They are wonderful by the way. They’re my favorite.

Now, let’s focus on the psychological issues. We often talk about access issues or opportunity to just make contact, and they are clearly important issues for us. But the psychological issues I would contend deserve our attention the most. For families, parental self efficacy and the degree to which the parents construct a role for themselves personally, vis-à-vis their child’s education is important. Delgado-Gaitan’s work has been extremely influential in my thinking. She has aptly reminded us that the difference between parents who participate and those who do not is that those who do have recognized that they are a critical part of their children’s education and these parents believe their efforts make a difference. They believe they can truly assist their sons and daughters. A question looms: if parents do not see how they impact their children’s learning, how does this affect educators’ efforts to create home/school interventions?