School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Preparing Educators and Improving Schools

Description

How can teachers and administrators be prepared to create partnerships with families and communities? Nationwide, rhetoric in favor of parent involvement is high, but the quality of most programs still is low. Part of the problem is that most teacher education, administrative training, and other education of school professionals omit topics of school, family, and community partnerships. Instead, educators are prepared in limited ways to “deal with parents" when problems occur. Well-known and respected author Joyce Epstein updates her acclaimed School, Family, and Community Partnerships to reflect the past ten years of study and advancements. New readings address this growing field and offer expanded consideration of district leadership and its impact on school programs. Epstein contends it is now possible to prepare teachers and administrators with a solid base of knowledge on partnerships. Theoretical perspectives and results from research and development can and should be shared with educators. As partners, parents and teachers share responsibility for the education and development of their children. Common messages and collaborative activities of home and school help to promote student success, prevent problems, and solve those that arise. Epstein provides the material needed to help current educators and educators in training think about, talk about, and then act to develop comprehensive programs of school, family, and community partnerships.This collection is designed for use in courses of teacher education, preparation of school administrators, and other courses that prepare professionals to understand and to work in schools and with families and students. It is a definitive resource both in and out of the classroom with comments, discussion questions, activities, and field experiences in each of the chapters. Review: Dated and obsolete 2nd edition. Watch out for same in this edition. - Dated and obsolete 2nd edition. Watch out for 4th edition continuing ignorance on legal provisions on ESSA and effectively fostering lack of engagement with same in the content of Title I public schools. Bottom line: it wants to look authoritative on this subject but it is not. It simply documents its own research on the subject. Nothing else. Like: Comprehensive, research-based resources for schools to partner with student's family and community. Didn't: No explanation on how Title I Part A (family and community participation) works. It does comment about it, but only as an outsider. Comments are from before 2015; keep mentioning section 1118, when Every Student Succeeds Act renumbered that section to 1116 back in early 2015. No mention on how to leverage Title I Part A to avoid duplication of efforts. Review: Very useful - Epstein knows her stuff and is backed by a well-respected institution in her research. I used it for several training sessions with both education administrators and classroom teacher groups.