Home-School Partnerships in a 17P

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 430 695 PS 027 629 AUTHOR Bensman, David in a TITLE Open Doors, Closed Doors: Home-School Partnerships Large Bronx Elementary School. PUB DATE 1999-04-00 NOTE 17p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meetingof the American Educational Research Association (Montreal, Quebec,Canada, April 19-23, 1999). PUB TYPE Speeches/Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Family School Relationship; *High Risk Students;Middle Schools; Parent Participation; *Parent SchoolRelationship; School Culture; Urban Areas IDENTIFIERS New York City Board of Education ABSTRACT Although efforts to support family-schoolpartnerships are a prominent part of strategies for improvingeducation for at-risk students, in communities with wide home/school culturaldifferences, such "partnerships" often operate on a superficial level involving one-waycompliance to school norms. This study examined home-schoolpartnerships in a New York City school, focusing on two families whose childrenattended the same fifth grade classroom in 1996-97. Members of the Ruiz Vegafamily and the Arjay family were interviewed and visited athome several times. Clarissa Ruiz had severe reading problems that were overlooked at schoolbecause she did not call attention to herself. The study maintains that her parents werenot the aggressive advocates that school personnelbelieved necessary because of their own poor school experiences, lack of skills,and the intimidation of parents inherent in school practices.Luther Arjay had considerable difficulty in completing homework. His mother andschool personnel identified the reason for the difficulty and implemented asolution. Mrs. Arjay had a great deal of support from a parent-teacher programsponsored by Lehman College in Luther's fifth grade and was determined toenroll him in the best middle school she could find. The study concludedthat the attitudinal changes required to foster the mutual respect necessaryto form effective partnerships must be deep and widespread, and mustinvolve transforming the whole school culture. At this school, otherreform efforts openly contradicted the effort to foster school-familypartnerships. Thus, some families found the door to partnership open, and othersfound it closed. (Contains 26 references.) (KB) ******************************************************************************** * * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that canbe made * * from the original document. ******************************************************************************** U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Off ice of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND *This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS originating it. BEEN GRANTED BY 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. dbensmanrci.rutgers.edu(732-932-1745) Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Open Doors, Closed Doors: 1 Home-School Partnerships in a Large Bronx Elementary School By David Bensman It is commonly held that family/school partnerships support children's progress (Corner, 1993; Epstein, 1995; Swap, 1993). Efforts to support school partnerships are prominent in local, state, and federal strategies for improving educational opportunities for those held to be "at-risk" (OEM, 1997). But in communities where the cultural differences between home and school are wide, partnership is a more complex phenomenon than is usually realized (Fordham, 1996; Lareau, 1989; Martin, 1992; 1989; Sinclair, 1994; Suina, 1991; Valdes, 1996). The vague term "partnership" frequently masks complicated power dynamics. Often, schools design partnerships to help teachers advance school agendas, but neglect to bring student and family values into the learning community (Weber, 1997). These "partnerships" often operate on a superficial level that involves one-way compliance to school norms. When school efforts fail to enlist families and students in their institutional enterprise, school personnel often blame students, their families, and communities. In order to investigate the complexity of home-school partnerships in an educational setting where the culture of the school is very different from that of the cultures of the families C)1 constituting the surrounding communities, I selected CES 818 in the Morrisania section of the G\1 southwest Bronx. The school is located within District 9, in the poorest congressional district in (\) the United States. Its student body includes 1600 students in two sites, the main building on the south side of the street and the lower school annex on the north side. More than 60% of the students are Hispanic and 30% African American. Sixteen percent of third graders are reading at BESTCOPYAVAILABLE 2 2 or above level. Under the leadership of its principal, the school has engaged in a variety of reform efforts. For example, in an effort to make the school more manageable and to foster a sense of community, he has divided the school into four mini-schools, each with its own director, an Assistant Principal. The school's reading program brings students at the same reading level together outside their home classroom to work on skill development in a focused, sequential manner. Outside corporate funding supports arts programs, computers,athletics. Federal dropout prevention grants pay for in-house counseling. There is also a parent education and participation program, which offers courses in English as a second language,GED courses, and parenting programs, and which recruits parents involved in these courses toparticipate in fund-raising, school trips, and educational planning. Parent Participation in a Fifth Grade Classroom In order to determine how the school's efforts to promote family-school partnerships impacted on children's learning, I will focus on the story of two families whose childrenattended Mrs. Lynns's fifth grade classroom, where I spent most of the 1996-97 school year. Mrs. Lynns, a tall, slim, meticulously dressed African American woman, with a Masters degree in Counseling Psychology and 10 years experience teaching at CES 818, was usually the center of attention in her classroom of 31 students. Mrs. Lynns was widelyrespected by her colleagues at CES 818 for her ability to keep control without shouting and harsh disciplinary measures. Her technique was consistent enforcement of "rules andregulations." Children who 3 3 talked to each other, forgot homework, or left their seats without raising their hands to obtain permission received black marks and lost privileges. Mrs. Lynns' admonitions, instructions, and sentences were delivered in a stern near-whisper. In her graduate psychology classes, Mrs. Lynns had learned that forcing students to strain to hear gave her power; she used that power to create an orderly learning environment, where children could be shown theright way to divide and multiply, organize paragraphs, and find the main ideas in writing samples. Mrs. Lynns' classroom contrasted impressively with neighboring classrooms, from which the sounds of running feet and raised voices could often be heard. Indeed, children who disrupted other classrooms were often sent to Mrs. Lynns' room to calm down and experience order, even if they were supposed to learning different curriculum units and skills. Parents were not often seen in Mrs. Lynns' classroom. Jose's grandmother came in twice to serve Spanish lunches, once on Jose's birthday, and once as graduation neared. Several parents came in to respond to notes sent home notifying them that their children were not doing homework or misbehaving. A few more parents came in to bring their own complaints with their children's behavior or lack of academic progress. Twice a year family conferences brought in about half the parents for fifteen-minute meetings, in which Mrs. Lynns explained to parents why their children received the grades they did. Children doing well were praised; parents of children experiencing difficulty were urged to monitor their children's homework. "Leave the teaching to me; I'm the one trained and paid to do it," was Mrs. Lynns' message. Closed Doors: The Story of the Ruiz Vega Family In order to learn about the relationships between families and parents, our OERI- funded 4 4 study budgeted $3000 for each of the four researchers to pay cooperating families. Idecided to ask Clarissa Ruiz' family to participate, offering them $1000 to let me visit theirhome several times and interview family members. My first home visit was in January. Clarissa walked home from school with me,down the hill on an exposed concrete staircase, and two blocks over to the public housing projectwhere her family lives. On the way, she tells me that she lives there with her father and mother, two sisters and a brother. Her mother and father have always been together, she tells meproudly, and will always stay together. It's the first time I've heard that Clarissa's father liveswith the family -- and Clarissa cautions me not to tell anyone. After I meet Clarissa's mother and siblings, I try to put everyone at ease by asking Clarissa if she'd like me to help her with her homework, and her eyes light up. She opens upher math book, and we sit down at the dining room table to start doing arithmetic. I askClarissa to read me the first problem, and that's where troubles begin. When Clarissa

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