Parent Involvement and Educational Outcomes for Latino Students

This study focuses on the determinants and effects of parent involvement in schools, in the context of urban school districts, and particularly with regard to the schools that serve Latino students. Three research questions are investigated in this article: (1) What are schools doing to support parents, foster involvement and engagement in their children’s schools, and generally create strong parent-school relations? (2) How effective are schools at fostering parent involvement? (3) Do schools with more effective parent involvement practices and greater parent participation perform at higher levels than those with less effective practices and lower levels of parent involvement? Data on Latino representation on Local School Councils (LSCs), school-level demographic and performance indicators, and information on effective school organization, parent involvement, and school practices regarding outreach and engagement with parents and communities are used to investigate these questions. The empirical analysis demonstrates that in addition to previously established aspects of effective school organization, governing arrangements and Latino political incorporation play a critical role in building stronger, more supportive school–parent relations and in encouraging higher levels of parent involvement in formal school activities. Moreover, these practices and relations were found to have important implications for Latino student performance. The last 4 decades have witnessed large-scale U.S. immigration that is more racially, ethnically, and culturally diverse than in years past. One of the most dramatic changes has been the increase in the Latino population—both native and foreign born. Immigrant Latinos and their children have become substantially larger fixtures in public schools and urban neighborhoods since the late 1980s (McDonnell & Hill, 1993). For instance, while Latino children currently account for about 1 in 6 school-aged children, they comprised 41% of students in the top ten largest public school districts in 2000. Moreover, the percentage of Latino elementary schoolchildren in metropolitan public schools increased by more than 50% in the 1990s (to approximately 3.6 million), and their size was comparable to their African American counterparts by 2000 (Zhou & Logan, 2003). As a result of these demographic changes, many school districts are faced with increasing demands not only for more classrooms and schools, but also for more teachers who have been trained to work with culturally diverse children and their communities. These relatively young migrants and families, whose children constitute a growing share of public, particularly urban, schools, face their own set of challenges and barriers when it comes to their children’s schooling and education. For example, they are more likely to experience language barriers, visa and other immigration problems, and poverty than are Anglo and nonimmigrant parents (Gibson, 2002). These challenges are often compounded by the fact many parents must confront public institutions not accustomed to serving them (Fuller, Holloway, Liang, & Rambaud, 1996; Ruiz-de-Velasco & Fix, 2000; Singer, 2004). One indicator of the inability of public schools to adapt to the changing demographics is the educational outcomes of Latino students. Although their schooling 1053 Review of Policy Research, Volume 23, Number 5 (2006) © 2006 by The Policy Studies Organization. All rights reserved. outcomes have improved gradually over the last 30 years, Latino students still lag far behind their Anglo and African American counterparts. For example, in 2000, the status dropout rate for Latinos was 28%, compared to only 7% for Anglos and 13% for African Americans (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2002). Additionally, Latino students consistently score lower on math and reading tests than Anglos, especially in central cities (NCES, 2002). Finally, recent studies also document the segregation of Latino students based on ethnicity (Frankenberg & Lee, 2002) and language (Orfield, 2001). Though there are many causes for low academic achievement and high dropout rates among Latino students, including language barriers, low expectations of teachers, poverty, racism, and isolation (Gibson, 2002), the lack of cooperation among schools, parents, and their communities has also been found to play a role (Scribner, Young, & Pedroza, 1999). Indeed, several studies have documented the positive relationship between parental and community involvement and higher Latino student achievement (Aspiazu, Bauer, & Spillet, 1998; Haro, 2004; Jones & Velez, 1997). Other studies have shown that in districts where Latinos have high levels of representation on school boards and in administrative and teaching positions, Latino students are not only less likely to experience second generation discrimination,2 but are also more likely to perform at levels comparable to their Anglo counterparts (Fraga, Meier, & England, 1986; Polinard, Wrinkle, & Longoria, 1990; Polinard, Wrinkle, & Meier, 1995). In this research we focus on both the determinants and effects of parent involvement in schools, in the context of urban school districts, and particularly with regard to the schools that serve Latino students. This article is motivated by three research questions. First, what are schools doing to support parents, foster involvement and engagement in their children’s schools, and generally create strong parent–school relations? To what extent do organizational, governing, and demographic factors influence these activities? Second, how effective are schools at fostering parent involvement? Do parents respond to the incentives, outreach, and support provided by schools? Third, do schools with more effective parent involvement practices and greater parent participation perform at higher levels than those with less effective practices and lower levels of parent involvement? Our empirical analysis is based on schools in the Chicago Public School system, a system which has not only had a relatively long period of decentralized governance and community involvement, but which has also granted noncitizens the right to vote in and run as candidates in Local School Council (LSC) elections. Given the greater opportunity for Latino political incorporation in schooling and school governance, we expect to find stronger links between governing arrangements, Latino representation on LSCs, and the development of stronger school–community relations and parent participation in Chicago than we might find in other urban school districts. These stronger links should, in turn, lead to better schooling outcomes for Latino students. Background and Theoretical Framework The persistent gap in Latino student achievement has been linked to a myriad of factors, including poverty and school segregation (Kao & Tienda, 1995; Orfield, 1054 Melissa Marschall