A new report looks at promising methods in preparing teachers to
understand the family's role in a child's education and to
effectively involve the family. Parent participation in
children's schooling is so important that it was established in
1994 as a National Education Goal. Yet "Teacher preparation in
family involvement lags far behind school efforts to promote
family involvement," according to a report released November 5
by Vice President Gore and Secretary of Education Richard W.
Riley at the "Partners for Learning: Preparing Teachers to
Involve Families" teleconference. The 65-page report, New Skills
for New Schools: Preparing Teachers in Family Involvement (1997,
Harvard Family Research Project), examines reasons for -- and
the status of -- teacher preparation in family involvement. It
also provides a framework that illustrates various kinds of
teacher training for family involvement. Unlike other family
involvement typologies, this framework focuses not on actual
family involvement activities carrie