Parents and Education

When I have time I like to read up on research in science and medicine, two fields that have always been of interest to me. I have found Science Daily to be a good site to get a lot of news and articles in one place. Today I found a news piece about a study done at the University of New Hampshire, in which researchers have come to the conclusion that parental involvement has a positive effect on a child’s ability to learn.

Karen Smith Conway, professor of economics says, “Parental effort is consistently associated with higher levels of achievement, and the magnitude of the effect of parental effort is substantial. We found that schools would need to increase per-pupil spending by more than $1,000 in order to achieve the same results that are gained with parental involvement”.

The study used data from 10,000 eight graders in public and private school. The areas of interest included how frequently parents discussed activities with their child and whether they talked about their lessons at home, among other things.

While I’m sure the staff at the University of New Hampshire had good reasons to conduct this study, aren’t they really just stating the obvious? Having parents be responsible for their child’s education is part of the reason home schooling works so well for so many families. I don’t see how a child stands a chance of excelling at all in the public school system without active parental involvement.

So now that we have a university study telling us what we already know, what’s to be done with this information?
For more information read: Parental Involvement Strongly Impacts Student Achievement