Homework assignments that require help from family members can get parents more involved in middle school, a time many parents become less visible in school, concludes a new study in the School Community Journal.
Waveline Bennett-Conroy, director of pupil personnel services in the Mount Vernon City school district in Mount Vernon, N.Y., prefaced the homework intervention by interviewing 17 parents of 8th graders in a high-immigrant, low-income New York school district with historically low parent-involvement in the middle grades. She found that, while middle-school parents are often seen as being less interested in or involved in their children's academic careers, the district's parents expressed interest in working with their children. In fact, throughout the study, parents described considerably more involvement in school activities than school district officials recalled.
