Parent Involvement in Charter Schools

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Parent Involvement in Charter Schools
Traditional Public Schools

• By Zorka Karanxha
• Barry University

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Purpose of the study

• The purpose of this study was to determine if
  there are any differences in the degree and type
  of parent involvement in charter schools as
  compared to public schools.

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Research questions

• Is there a significant difference in the degree
  of parent involvement between charter schools and
  public schools?
• Is there a relationship between parent
  involvement in charter schools and public schools
  and race/ethnicity?
• Is there a difference between the relationship of
  SES and parent involvement in charter schools and
  in public schools?

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Research questions

• What are the practices utilized by charter
  schools to involve parents in their childrens
  education?
• What are the practices utilized by traditional
  public schools to involve parents in their
  childrens education?
• Is there a difference between practices utilized
  by charter and public schools to involve parents
  in their childrens education?

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Definition of Parent Involvement

• Based on Epsteins typology (1992)
• The six types of parent involvement are Type
  1-parenting, Type 2- communicating, Type 3-
  volunteering, Type 4- learning at home, Type 5-
  decision making, and Type 6- collaborating with
  the community.

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Methodology

• Survey research
• Multi-stage sampling process
• Random sampling after first stage
• Population Principals of elementary public and
  charter schools
• Instrument The questionnaire (PIQ) consisted of
  a combination of selected response items, check
  list and open-ended questions.

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Instrument reliability

• Cronbach alpha was .84
• A test-retest was done to determine the stability
  of the instrument over a period of time Cronbach
  alpha was .89.
• Instrument critique by pilot study participants
• Panel of experts Joyce L. Epstein and Daniel A.
  Novey.

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Instrument cont.

• A confirmatory factor analysis was done to test
  the hypothesis that the 26 items would cluster
  into the six factors of parent involvement as
  described by Epstein (1992). The hypothesis was
  confirmed, and I analyzed the factor scores as
  dependent variables.

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Research Questions, Source, and Analysis
 
Question Source Analysis
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Response rate

• 40 for the sample
• To determine the generalizability of the study, I
  conducted a Lawsche-Baker test. The results
  indicate that the conclusions of the study are
  applicable to the population under study.

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School Community Percentages by School Type  
School Community _________________
__________________________________________________
____ School Type Suburban
Rural
Urban _____________________________________
___________________________________
12
Race Mean SD Mean
SD Charter Charter Public Public
 p lt.05
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Summary of findings

• The first key finding of confirmatory factor
  analysis was the validation of the theoretical
  framework of parent involvement the instrument is
  based on, which further enhances the foundational
  theory of parent involvement by adding another
  type of parent involvement i.e., decision making
  at the school board level.

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Findings

• Second, the results of factor analysis validate
  findings that parents of charter schools have
  more opportunities to be involved in
  decision-making at the school board level (Becker
  et al., 1993 Miron Nelson, 2001).

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Findings

• Third, MANOVA test results show that charter
  school type has a significant effect on parent
  involvement. Between subjects effects analysis
  revealed that school type is significant on one
  type of parent involvement- factor 4 School
  board level decision making. Charter schools
  have a higher degree of participation on this
  factor than public schools do.

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Findings

• Fourth, results show that race is significant on
  four factors-factor 3 Learning at home, factor
  4 School board level decision making, factor 5
  Co-learning and advocacy, and factor 6 Parents
  employed by the school.
• Schools with majority white students have higher
  levels of parent involvement regardless of school
  type on factor 3 4 while schools with majority
  minority students have higher levels of
  involvement on factor 5 6.

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Findings

• Fifth, data show that SES is significant in
  regards to parent involvement but an interaction
  of school type and SES is not.
• This shows that there is no difference in the
  relationship of SES and parent involvement in
  charter schools and public schools.

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Findings

• Charter schools and public schools use some of
  the same practices to involve parents in their
  childrens education.
• The majority of teachers in both types of schools
  try to involve parents by sending information
  about school learning and ways to help their
  children with learning.
• Public school teachers outperform charter school
  teachers in all practices although none of the
  practices rises to significance level.

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Findings

• Public schools are more likely to have a family
  center than charter schools.
• Also, the difference is significant on a parent
  volunteers to coordinate parent involvement,
• and a team of administrators, teachers and
  parents plans and implements the schools program
  of school, family, and community partnership.

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Findings

• Charter schools on the other hand utilize
  contracts that have consequences for the children
  if their parents do not fulfill the requirements.
  
• Having consequences in parent teacher contracts
  is a significant difference between public and
  charter schools.

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Findings

• The most successful parent involvement practices
  for both charter and public schools are
• Use of incentives to increase parent involvement
• Involvement of children in activities,
• Setting rules and regulations for parent
  involvement.

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Implications for the instrument

• The results show that there are different types
  of parent involvement and that they are all part
  of the same construct.
• Factor analysis does uncover weaknesses in some
  items that need to be scrutinized and refined.
• Factor analysis further reveals differences in
  the decision-making process between charter
  schools and public schools.

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Implications for the instrument

• So, a suggestion for future use of this
  instrument would be adding more items to
  investigate decision making at the school board
  level and communication processes between schools
  and parents.

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Discussion

• It is expected that the dynamics of charter
  school parent participation at the school board
  level would be different than that of public
  schools. Moreover, charter school parents are the
  ones that have chosen to enroll their children in
  charter schools thus, because of this choice,
  might be more inclined to attend school board
  meetings, and to give ideas to the board on
  improvement of charter schools.

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Discussion

• This study showed that parents participate least
  in school level decision making. Henry (1996) and
  Leiderman (1996) found that parents in public
  schools are provided few opportunities to be
  involved in decision making. So, it might be that
  parents are least involved in decision making
  because schools do not provide opportunities for
  parents to be involved. The percentage of parents
  involved in the school level decision-making was
  at zero percent in most public schools and a few
  charter schools.

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Discussion

• It appears that schools are interested in one
  type of parent involvement (volunteering at
  school or school sponsored events) and they
  invite parents to come, they provide
  opportunities for them to get involved, and they
  also have success in doing so, but schools do not
  provide as many opportunities for other types of
  parent involvement.

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Discussion

• Findings from this study show charter and public
  schools provide very few opportunities for
  parents to get better educated. Seminars and
  workshops are rare in both types of schools (35
  of charter schools v. 35.7 of public schools
  offer classes for parents), and it appears that
  schools do little for disadvantaged parents that
  might have difficulty speaking the language, who
  do not know how to help their children with
  homework, and who feel inadequate to tutor their
  children at home.

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Discussion

• This study found that race has a significant
  effect on parent involvement.
• Moreover, this study found that white parents are
  more involved than minority parents even when SES
  and school type were controlled.

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Discussion

• The most important and encouraging finding is
  that teacher and school practices influence the
  degree and the type of parent involvement.
• Schools with higher percentages of minority
  students appear to be more inclined to organize
  workshops for parents, and to hire more parents
  to work as part time or full time employees. This
  might suggest that schools are starting to move
  beyond the traditional parent involvement
  practices.

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Discussion

• It is surprising, however, that SES has no
  relationship to school type. Neither does race.
  Both these findings suggest that charter schools
  are not very different from public schools.
  Despite claims made by advocates of charter
  schools, it appears that when school type is
  combined with either race or SES, there are no
  significant effects on parent involvement. This
  might also suggest that charter schools have not
  yet fully developed an identity that is
  significantly different from public schools.

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Discussion

• An interesting finding of school practices as
  reported by school administrators is the use of
  contracts. Research studies on parent involvement
  in charter schools have reported wide use of
  contracts to increase parent involvement (Becker
  et al., 1997 Manno et al., 1998 Perry, 1998),
  and the findings of this study corroborate these
  findings. Eleven charter schools (55 ) use
  contracts to increase parent involvement.

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Discussion on PI contracts

• However, the most interesting and unexpected
  finding was that public schools in Pennsylvania
  use contracts, as well. In fact, 30 public
  schools (35.7 ) in the sample report the use of
  contracts as a practice to involve parents in
  their childrens education. Despite this fact,
  none of the public schools that use contracts
  mention them as an effective parent involvement
  practice.

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PI contracts

• There is a significant difference between charter
  schools and public schools on the consequences
  associated with the use of contracts.
• The finding that charter schools are holding
  parents accountable, and that they require
  parents to attend a certain number of hours or
  events per school year, is the same as the
  findings of the studies done by Becker et al.,
  (1997) Manno et al., (1998) Perry, (1998) SRI,
  (1997) and Wells et al., (1998).

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Contracts cont.

• It also appears that charter schools have
  school-wide policies on consequences.
• This is an indication that charter schools are
  making conscious efforts to involve parents, and
  have chosen to concentrate on contract usage to
  achieve that goal.
• More importantly, they make this requirement
  clear before students are admitted in schools,
  and parents have to take that requirement into
  consideration before enrolling their children in
  a charter school.

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Best practices

• Charter schools contracts
• Public schools incentives for kids and parents
• Both types of schools activities where children
  are involved
• Few schools (charter and public) seem to be
  creative in the type of educational activities
  they designed.

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Reasons for success

• Flexibility in scheduling
• Passionate staff members
• An atmosphere of welcoming parents
• A very active group of involved parents who
  recruit other parents to become involved
• Clarity of communication

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Recommendations for practice

• Provide opportunities for parents to be involved
  in decision making.
• Provide training for teachers on how to involve
  parents
• Offer seminars and workshops that educate parents
  on how to help their children.
• Look at parent involvement as a necessity.
• Have policies in place and budgets need to
  reflect the changes in approaching parent
  involvement.

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Questions?
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THANK YOU!