Although I believe the single most important indicator of student success is the quality of teaching and how we use assessment to inform our instructional practice, second to that is meaningful parental involvement and its connection to student learning.

A Family Circus cartoon speaks volumes to the importance of parents:

The child comes home from school with paper in hand and shows his mother a picture of his first and most important teacher and the mother replies, “Why it’s Daddy and me!”  The sub-text reads, “What parents teach stays with you always.  What they fail to teach can never be learned from others.”

We have schools to negate the above quote but it’s a very bold statement that validates the importance of family and warrants further discussion.

Children come to school with completely different experiences and ability levels.  Some enter Kindergarten not recognizing the letters of their name and in the same class, a student may be reading a novel. As with the term student, the term “parent” is not a homogenous group with common characteristics, parents vary immensely.  However, what parents undertake at home to support student learning matters A LOT.