The trend in increasing accountability for schools, teachers and student performance via standardized testing has come about due to education reforms such as President BushÆs ôNo Child Left Behind Act.ö Two research studies in the literature reveal that student learning and performance are enhanced through family integration into community and school-related activities. The first study, examining data from over 300 U.S. schools on their efforts to develop high quality programs of school, family, and community partnerships, was conducted by Steven B. Sheldon and Frances L. Van Voorhis (2004), Partnership programs in U.S. Schools: Their development and relationship to family involvement outcomes. The second study, examining the connections between specific family and community involvement activities and student achievement, was conducted by Steven B. Sheldon and Joyce L. Epstein (2005), Involvement counts: Family and community partnerships and mathematics achievement. This analysis will compare and contrast the findings of these two studies as a means of demonstrating how schools and communities can more fully integrate families in order to achieve higher levels of student performance.
In Partnership programs in U.S. Schools, Sheldon and Van Voorhis (2004) analyzed data from over 300 schools attempting to integrate school program, family, and community partnerships. The results of the analysis demonstrated that schools with greater integration among ôparents, teachers and the communityö reported ôhigh quality partnership programsö (Sheldon & Van Voorhis, 2004, p. 125). In order to encourage higher quality partnership programs, such schools were active in implementing parent-child interactive homework, higher levels of parent volunteering across community programs, and involved parents to a higher degree on school and community decision-making committees, (Sheldon & Van Voorhis, 2004). The results of the study illustr...