INFORMATION FOR PARENTS

PARENT ENGAGEMENT IS CRITICAL AND MUST START EARLY

Unfortunately for at-risk students, the achievement gap begins early: By the time they reach fifth grade, low-income children lag behind their middle-class peers by two and a half grade levels in literacy.39 Over time, the achievement gap compounds; when students don’t get the support they need to catch up, they begin to disengage. In other words, students begin the process of dropping out in
elementary school.

Policy Action: Provide Parents with Early, Relevant Information about Student Development and Progress

Parent involvement and support at home are critical to student success. Despite this, teachers and principals receive little pre-service training in effective outreach strategies, and as a state we have not developed ways to measure parent engagement as a means of encouraging and understanding this piece of the learning puzzle.

As importantly, while some schools and districts are devising their own strategies to involve and inform parents, the state does a poor job of providing families with user-friendly information to help them support their children, particularly in the early years. Knowing what is expected of their child at each developmental stage, and understanding progress and gaps along the way, is an essential first step in strengthening a parent’s ability to support student growth at home.

Adopt a kindergarten readiness measure. Illinois lags behind the nation in developing a way to measure students’ school readiness. Having a robust and reliable snapshot of where students are developmentally as they begin kindergarten gives parents and educators a head start in identifying issues and directing resources where they are needed most. Given Illinois’ considerable investment in pre-kindergarten access and expansion, such a measure also allows the state to better understand the impact of early childhood education programs.

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