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Citation:

Sheldon, S. B. (2003). Linking school-family-community partnerships in urban elementary schools to student achievement on state tests. Urban Review, 35(2), 149-165.

Annotation:
This study's objective is to examine the relationship between the quality of a school-family-community partnership program and the performance of students on state-mandated achievement tests. Researchers examined partnership programs that used Epstein's (1995, 2001) theory of overlapping spheres and six types of involvement as a framework for school efforts to involve families and the community in students' education. Multiple regression analyses indicate that the degree to which schools are working to overcome barriers to equitable parent involvement predicted higher scores on state achievement tests, after accounting for poverty, mobility, and size of the school population. Sample schools were members of the National Network of Partnership Schools program (NNPS). This study utilized school reports on the quality and progress of their school's partnership program with achievement results from the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program (MSPAP), a state-mandated, performance-based, criteria-referenced test. MSPAP data on 3rd and 5th grade students and school characteristic information were obtained for 113 public schools in one urban school system. Data from 82 schools in the sample that completed the National Network of Partnership Schools (NNPS) end-of-year survey were compared to schools that did not report on partnership program implementation. The majority of students in the sample were from low-income, mobile families, and they performed poorly on state achievement tests. This study suggests that striving to involve family and community members in student learning can contribute to students' success on standardized achievement tests. This study adds to the research literature by linking the quality of schools' family and community involvement programs with independently collected achievement test outcomes. It is important to note that the data analyzed in the study were from a cross-section of the student population. Future research should examine longitudinal data and address the impact of school-family-community partnership program quality on scholastic performance beyond the elementary years.