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What parent engagement measurements (if any) are used to measure K-12 schools progress according to Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and other key regulations?
Hello! Thanks for your question about what parent engagement measurements or metrics are used to measure K-12 school’s progress according to Every Student Succeeds Act. The short version is that as you ascertained, there is not one unified metric for measuring this, but rather states and schools are developing their own tools including parent surveys and accompanying metrics that allow them to quantify this data in some way. Public schools as well as the National PTA have suggested various methods of parent engagement, but little has been suggested on how to standardize evaluation of those programs. I also noted that the requirement that ESSA programs be developed in partnership with parent and family preferences may be contributing to the lack of standardizing the evaluations. Below you will find a deep dive of my findings.
METHODOLOGY
In order to answer this question, I examined reports on Every Student Succeeds Act as related to parent and family engagement requirements, from both national and state sources. I also looked at plans from various school districts on how they either are or plan to evaluate parent engagement, as well as any media sources that discussed metrics or evaluation as related to the topic.
OVERVIEW OF ESSA PARENT ENGAGEMENT REQUIREMENTS
In 2015, when ESSA was reinstated to replace No Child Left Behind, the previous 'parent involvement' portion of ESSA was changed to ‘parent and family engagement’ and several new items were added. Specifically, engagement outreach had to reach all parents and family members, and that use of ESSA funds had to be used for at least one of the following parent engagement activities; professional development, home based programs, disseminating information, collaborating with community-based organizations, or other activities deemed appropriate to parent and family engagement policy. Note, I've attached a link which highlights which portions of ESSA were added as related to parent and family engagement.
Overall, ESSA outlined that school districts would only receive funds if they participated in appropriate parent and family engagement activities overall, and as such required a written policy on this be distributed to parents and family members of participating children, part of which included information on how this would be evaluated.
While ESSA does specify that evaluation is part of the requirements for a school or district, you were correct in noting that you sensed ESSA does not offer a required or unifying metric to evaluate the program or outcomes. Rather the policy requires joint evaluation with schools and parents, in some form to identify whether the school was meeting the various requirements outlined in the program. Below I will examine some of the ways ESSA parent and family engagement has been measured as well as suggested metrics, and any other relevant data.
METRICS
Chicago area schools were noted to have utilized ESSA parent and family engagement practices a great deal to improve student outcomes, so to get an idea of some of the metrics being used, I initially turned to schools in this region to see how they measured parent engagement as related to ESSA requirements. Chicago Public Schools used parent surveys to measure the results of their highly developed Family and Community Engagement (FACE) program, which includes various programs such as Parent Universities to involve family members in learning outcomes. They implemented the survey in 2016 by sending out an invitation to an online series of questions to parents called the “My Voice My School Parent survey”.
Other schools, like Polaski International School of Chicago, rate parent engagement on a 1-5 scale, with 1 being very weak, 2 weak, 3 neutral, 4 strong, and 5 very strong. In order to determine where the school falls on the scale, parents are asked a series of questions that fall into four topics: volunteering at the school, being contacted about their child’s performance, awareness of student’s grades /picking up report card, and attending parent teacher conferences. Parents/family survey responses were tallied to determine for each question whether none, some, about half, most, or all of parents/ family were engaged in each category.
Other states or public school systems have released handbooks that outline parent and family engagement strategies and requirements. For example, the Georgia Department of Education developed a manual for a Parent Involvement Program, and Ohio released a Best Practices Guide for Parent Involvement in Schools. However while both suggest key focuses, neither includes a quantifiable metric.
Other frameworks for evaluation have involved one-on-one meetings with parents that follow a set outline of questions and engage in depth discussion about the school's engagement performance. The most standardized guide for evaluation I was able to find was designed by the National PTA through their work with 50 parent focus groups in multiple states as well as national surveys, and suggested questions such as the following be discussed in person with parents or family members:
-What letter grade would you give the state’s schools?
-What are schools doing well and how can they be improved?
-What letter grade would you give your child’s school?
-What defines a good school?
However, again while the National PTA offered specific insight into a survey that might allow schools to better engage with parents, even here no definitive guide or metric was given to show that ESSA parent engagement requirements were met via these questions, other than perhaps having engaged parents via the meeting itself.
OTHER RELEVANT DATA
One challenge that may exist in developing any sort of unified standard for measuring ESSA parent and family engagement is that part of the plan's requirement designates parents and family members must be involved in not only evaluating school performance and their student's education, but in determining how the allocated funds for that engagement be spent. Thus parent and family engagement programs themselves are likely to vary widely based on community preferences.
Given that variance, it makes sense that no standard metric exists- to design one for a set of programs that are not standard themselves likely would be more challenging than evaluating student performance for example. A metric would have to be established that allows for the decision making power of parents in designating the format of their district or school's engagement program to begin with. Furthermore, one can imagine that given this level of prescribed involvement, parents and family helping to shape the program may also be highly involved in determining which form of evaluation or accountability they see fit.
So in summary, while there is not one standardized metric for evaluating ESSA parent and family engagement, various methods used were parent surveys and one-on-one meetings combined with custom quantified ratings. In addition to not having one standard metric, parent and family engagement programs themselves are likely widely variant, with some states and the National PTA offering suggestions for best practices or program formats but little guidance on evaluation. Thanks for using Wonder! Please let us know if we can help with anything else!