Why does it matter?

For decades, researchers have point­ed to one key suc­cess fac­tor that tran­scends near­ly all oth­ers, such as socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus, stu­dent back­ground or the kind of school a stu­dent attends:  parental involve­ment.

The extent to which schools nur­ture pos­i­tive rela­tion­ships with fam­i­lies — and vice ver­sa — makes all the dif­fer­ence, research shows. Stu­dents whose par­ents stay involved in school have bet­ter atten­dance and behav­ior, get bet­ter grades, demon­strate bet­ter social skills and adapt bet­ter to school.

Parental involve­ment also more secure­ly sets these stu­dents up to devel­op a life­long love of learn­ing, which researchers say is key to long-term success.

A gen­er­a­tion ago, the Nation­al PTA found that three key par­ent behav­iors are the most accu­rate pre­dic­tors of stu­dent achieve­ment, tran­scend­ing both fam­i­ly income and social status:

1.  Cre­at­ing a home envi­ron­ment that encour­ages learning;

2.   Com­mu­ni­cat­ing high, yet rea­son­able, expec­ta­tions for achieve­ment; and 

3.   Stay­ing involved in a child’s edu­ca­tion at school.

What’s more, researchers say when this hap­pens, the moti­va­tion, behav­ior and aca­d­e­m­ic per­for­mance of all chil­dren at a par­tic­u­lar school improve. Sim­ply put, the bet­ter the part­ner­ship between school and home, the bet­ter the school and the high­er the stu­dent achieve­ment across the board.

--Excerpt from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion ​“Parental Involve­ment in Edu­ca­tion Pol­i­cy” report