Middle and high schools serving poor youth cite the lack of parent involvement and support for school aims as a leading cause of educational failure for students. In the most creative of these schools, outreach efforts take many forms but continue to yield less-than-desirable results (e.g., Rossi et al., 1994; Rossi and Stringfield, 1997; Rossi, in press). In more affluent schools, parents also often face subtle and not-so-subtle barriers to involvement in the learning process. Professional jargon, teacher reticence to opening decisionmaking processes to scrutiny by nonprofessionals, students' reticence to having mom or dad at school, and the lack of time and convenient opportunities for teachers and parents to exchange information and review progress all militate against development of constructive relationships. In the absence of these relationships, parent involvement in setting education-related standards and expectations for their children have been shown to be potentially counterproductive (e.g., McDermott, Goldman, and Varenne 1984).
In this Phase I effort, iBuildCommunity.com staff will assess the feasibility of delivering internet-based tools to train teachers and parents to work with one another effectively and to use the web to establish with one another and with students a 1earning place where all can teach and grow together. Summary of Anticipated Results and Implications: We expect to learn how best to design interactive tools to promote establishing shared vision, trust, and effective communication between teachers, parents, and students in support of learning goals. We also expect to identify solutions to the potential problems of internet access for poor families and of confidentiality for student information. Finally, we will determine the most effective strategies for accommodating the language needs of non-English-speaking families. Our approach has important implications for delivering needed training and providing communication possibilities tailored to the needs of busy teachers, parents, and students. Commercially, we will be laying the ground for direct sales of capacity-building tools to education agencies and continuing sales of on-line (ASP) professional development services to teachers, schools, and school districts.
