Janet H. Chrispeels

Effective Schools and Home‐School‐Community Partnership Roles: A Framework for Parent Involvement

ABSTRACT The increased interest in parent involvement as a strategy for school reform stems from two bodies of parent involvement research. One set of studies examined family learning environments; the other investigated the impact on student learning of school‐initiated parent involvement programs. This article reviews these two bodies of research, which have influenced current discussions about home‐school partnerships, shows the relationship between practices of successful home‐learning environments and effective schools research, and uses this relationship to propose a typology of home‐school‐community partnership roles and activities. When the research on effective family practices is combined with effective schools research and placed within a typology of partnership roles, schools have a framework for examining current parent involvement practices and exploring strategies that will enhance student learning both at home and at school. *This article is adapted, with permission, from an Occasional Pap...

Four School Leadership Teams Define Their Roles Within Organizational and Political Structures to Improve Student Learnign

A shift in educational policy and practice is to involve teachers in school reform. Many reform programs require school leadership teams for involving teachers, yet few studies have examined how teachers take up such new roles and responsibilities. Using the dual conceptual lenses of open-systems and micropolitics, we investigate how four middle school teams engaged with their colleagues to construct an identity, assume leadership roles, and situate themselves in their schools. We argue that the influence of training enabled teams to assume four roles: communicators, staff developers, problem-solvers, and leaders of change. The findings suggest that teams and educational leaders need to recognize the influence that existing organizational structures have on teams and the actions they are able to take. The results also indicate that knowledge of the organizational structure as well as micropolitical dynamics can serve as leverage points for constructing their roles and initiating change.