Who holds ultimate authority for the education of America's children—teachers or parents? Although the relationship between home and school has changed dramatically over the decades, William Cutler's fascinating history argues that it has always been a political one, and his book uncovers for the first time how and why the balance of power has shifted over time. Starting with parental dominance in the mid-nineteenth century, Cutler chronicles how schools' growing bureaucratization and professionalization allowed educators to gain increasing control over the schooling and lives of the children they taught. Central to his story is the role of parent-teacher associations, which helped transform an adversarial relationship into a collaborative one. Yet parents have also been controlled by educators through PTAs, leading to the perception that they are "company unions." Cutler shows how in the 1920s and 1930s schools expanded their responsibility for children's well-being outside the classroom. These efforts sowed the seeds for later conflict as schools came to be held accountable for solving society's problems. Finally, he brings the reader into recent decades, in which a breakdown of trust, racial tension, and "parents' rights" have taken the story full circle, with parents and schools once again at odds. Cutler's book is an invaluable guide to understanding how parent-teacher cooperation, which is essential for our children's educational success, might be achieved.

This book is based on the premise that schools and parents need to work together for the social, emotional, cognitive and academic development of children. While the school provides a leadership model, parents act as reinforcers of learning and prime movers in their children's education. The authors emphasize throughout the book that parents and educators need to celebrate the pleasure of teaching. In clear and accessible language, this work presents theories on learning and human relations. It then charts and reviews the important components of a successful school-parent partnership, giving specific recommendations on the best way to involve diverse groups of parents. Chapters are: US Families in the Context of Change; The African American Experience in Family Context; The Hispanic American Experience in Famiy Context; The Asian American Experience in Family Context; Communities of Education: Concepts Defined; Empowerment for all Parents; Required: A Positive Self-Concept; Successful Schools: A Parents' and Educators' Partnership; Successful Students: Ability, Effort and Parental Involvement; Parents: First and Most Important Teachers; Recommendations for the Improvement of Parental School Involvement; Advocacy for School and Home Partnership; author and subject indexes.

This book addresses the complications and implications of parental involvement as a policy, through an exploratory theoretical approach, including historical and sociological accounts and personal reflection. This approach represents the author's effort to understand the origins, meanings, and effects of parental involvement as a prerequisite of schooling and particularly as a policy 'solution' for low achievement and even inequity in the American educational system. Most of the policy and research discourse on school-family relations exalts the partnership ideal, taking for granted its desirability and viability, the perspective of parents on specific involvement in instruction, and the conditions of diverse families in fulfilling their appointed role in the partnership. De Carvalho takes a distinct stance. She argues that the partnership-parental ideal neglects several major factors: It proclaims parental involvement as a means to enhance (and perhaps equalize) school outcomes, but disregards how family material and cultural conditions, and feelings about schooling, differ according to social class; thus, the partnership-parental involvement ideal is more likely to be a projection of the model of upper-middle class, suburban community schooling than an open invitation for diverse families to recreate schooling. Although it appeals to the image of the traditional community school, the pressure for more family educational accountability really overlooks history as well as present social conditions. Finally, family-school relations are relations of power, but most families are powerless. De Carvalho makes the case that two linked effects of this policy are the gravest: the imposition of a particular parenting style and intrusion into family life, and the escalation of educational inequality. Rethinking Family-School Relations: A Critique of Parental Involvement in Schooling--a carefully researched and persuasively argued work--is essential reading for all school professionals, parents, and individuals concerned with public schooling and educational equality.

Parents and Schools Together shows administrators, teachers, and parents how to work together to produce high achieving students in urban school districts. We all know that in this fast-paced world of standards and commitments, it’s easy to forget what schools and parents are all about. There are things that schools can do to show parents the way to raise successful students. Parents have to help in order for schools to be high performing. Schools, especially schools of poverty and low achievement, have to have parent help if they are going to make it. Parents can’t use the excuse that they don’t know what to do or I’m not going to do that anymore. When schools enlist the help of parents, schools can begin to harness the full effect of all adults tag teaming together to raise students up to the levels they are capable of. Parents and School Together shows that it’s not just the school’s job to raise kids and it’s not just the parent’s job to raise kids. It takes both working together to raise successful students and kids.

Addresses the importance of parental information and resource centers in engaging parents as partners in the implementation and sucess of the No hild Left Behind Act.

This book maps globally shifting relations between families, schools and the state across a range of nations (Australia, Germany, India, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA) in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Featuring contributions from leading international experts, the book’s eight chapters reflect upon the apparently vital responsibility of parents for choosing the rights sort of educational pathways for their children, offering comparative insights into several different kinds of state, with different contexts for the practices of ‘educational’ parenting. The contributors consider the proposition that a significant focus of the material, emotional and occupational investment of contemporary parents is the formal education of their children, re-shaping not only the relationship between parents and schools but also the nature of parenthood itself. Parents are analysed both as local actors in schools and as subjects of national and international policy regimes, particularly recent and contemporary imperatives of marketisation.. With a focus on social change, the chapters examine the operation of global educational programmes and ideas in national and local settings. The collected national and local studies attend to different confluences of local, regional and transnational, considering a variety of social and cultural patterns as well as national and local educational structures and policy regimes. Parents, Schools and The State: Global Perspectives will be a useful resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of comparative education, educational policy and leadership, educational research, history of education, sociology, research methods and politics. This book was originally published as a special issue of Comparative Education.

This volume takes an international and multidisciplinary approach to understanding students’ academic achievement. It does so by integrating educational literature with developmental psychology and family studies perspectives. Each of the nine chapters focuses on a particular country: China, Colombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, the Philippines, Sweden, Thailand, or the United States. It describes the country as a cultural context, examines the current school system and parenting in light of the school system, and provides empirical evidence from that country regarding links between parenting and students’ academic achievement. The book highlights similarities and differences in education and parenting across these nine countries - all varying widely in socioeconomic and cultural factors that affect schools and families. The volume contributes to greater understanding of links between parenting and academic performance in different cultural groups. It sheds light on how school systems and parenting are embedded in larger cultural settings that have implications for students’ educational experiences and academic achievement. As two of the most important contexts in which children and adolescents spend time, understanding how schools and families jointly contribute to academic achievement holds promise for advancing the international agenda of promoting quality education for all.