ABSTRACT
As the prior chapters in this volume illustrate in many ways, the power of promoting partnership between schools and families is an important basis for the developmental and educational success of children. However, it is also evident here and in other reports that much of the power in these partnerships and the myriad ways in which they can enrich child achievement and mental health, teacher performance and satisfaction, and parental functioning and support for schools remains unrealized, existing merely as great potential. Unfortunately there is limited attention to this partnership as a central aspect of education, and when mentioned in legislation or other calls for reform the framing is often of parental rights against educational system control or of teacher’s employment rules pitted against reaching out to parents and innovative partnering. Almost absent and usually misrepresented in such discourse are knowledge and reliance on empirical information about effective models of parental involvement, opportunity to address qualms and presumptions about school-family partnerships, and underestimation of the value of such partnerships in supporting achievement and school success on multiple levels. The focus of this chapter is on some key issues for moving forward so that this underutilized potential can become action and advance from promise to actual benefits for children, families, schools, and the community at-large.
