there's been a partner for many years many years and we love Connecticut everyone is smart she both nice and and eager okay so those are three good things so tell us a little bit about well originally it came because my dissertation way back in the dinosaur days was really rather traditional sociology and at the entire people were asking they actually were arguing which is more important the family or the school and I always thought that was a little bit of a silly argument and the studied I did for dissertation proved really clearly to me that both are important and we better change that question and decades and decades of research has always shown a family is an important force in people's lives and so there really wasn't much point about that and their schools are important institutions and children's lives we don't learn algebra by by sticking around home so the notion really became if families are so important as all studies show they are how can we help all schools linked to families in the way that only now then some families do and that's still true today some families get involved no matter why they make it their business to get involved then they always have and they always will but schools need to be ready for all families not the easiest to reach not the ones who are already engaged but to involve all families changes the question and it becomes how do we help schools organize their work so that they're purposefully aware that they can involve all families in ways that help children do better in school so the historic data in sociology has been children who have involved families do better in school and no one is surprised about that but the way you get that kind of result is to have a a correlational regression line some children do better and their families are highly involved some children do worse and their families are uninvolved that's not a particularly helpful life we want to change the line we want to have all families engaged as best they can be to press their kids to do as well as they can in school we don't we want a flat line we don't want a regression and so part of this is a kind of a kind of an argument in between research and practice research above the regression line because it's a result right and then you get to work otherwise practice wants to have equity they want all children to do as well as they can in school and so when we change that question from our families important experiment we knew the answer to if families are so important how can all schools mobilize that resource that became a much harder question and then we had to begin to study how could that have and what would have to happen in order to help principals teachers district superintendents state departments really understand the difference that organizing in that way would require and so that's what we've been working on in ever since about 1980 it's a long time but the questions started off relatively easy in terms of basic research but as we went on from elementary to middle to high school to district leadership to state leadership the questions get harder and it gets more complicated and so we've been working at that for a long time not just me but other researchers as well and not just me at Hopkins but my staff that's a wonderful set of individuals who are really committed to finding the answers to help more schools districts and States actually do the work that this would really be so interesting cuz before every we're coming down here one things we're talking about is this is you know our parent Leadership Training Institute we've been training parents to be leaders right at 20 years and so that whole concept of it to be paint they realized a few years ago was that we're we're like on a parallel track but we're when we get twenty event and so part of what you do in your work getting a small spread age is critically important and we want to look at a community-based organization as daycare centers the entire room because our premises parent commissioners and other venues to the benefit of the organization the stupa kids so what nuggets do you have it well parent leadership is important but you could you could train or prepare or ready 10,000 parents and unless the schools are ready for them yes which they are just gonna be frustrated in in what they think they now know or can do and what it would take to really do that work with their children we're concerned and maybe you can be too not only about the parent leaders but how the parent leaders work with teachers and you work with principals and how they reach out to other parents the parents who have no intention or desire to ever be a leader they want to help their children they know that there are things to do sometimes a parent leader can help them but sometimes the teachers have to help them and sometimes the counselors or principals or others in the school have to help them and so that's what we mean by partnership we wouldn't focus in our work on just the parents or just parent leaders but we need people to do that work to that's its part there's all kinds of sides to this story but unless the district leaders in a big district lets these in relative terms in this country is really five or six schools or more or thirty or a hundred or 600 there are all different sizes of big across the country but the the district leader we've learned recently in our most recent big studies really is important for helping schools do their best and not only schools but all schools within the district so lots of times reform activities get picked up by one school that school or that school but the notion of helping all schools make a culture of good partnerships in a district means that as parents like if you have children who are in elementary middle or high school you don't want the gap to occur when the child finishes Elementary School and then people say we don't have any more information for you you want that partnership to continue and the people who are going to be leaders parent leaders may be different in the middle and high school from the elementary school as well but if there's good leadership training the elementary leaders will grow into our middle school as you know on their way with their children toward high school graduation so parent leadership is part of this story but there's been a good deal of kind of escaped emphasis on parent leaders a district will say well let's have some parent leadership program because they don't want to do the hard work which is prepare all your teachers all your principals should be ready for those leaders and we really believe that you have to have both sides of this story so one things we were talking about is here in Connecticut zip code like it's destiny zip code is des because what happens is the resources in the community as they come together support the family and the child walking time weapons well-resourced already resources for the time so we're trying to figure out how do we get to that now stepping in all districts because the whole concept of universal services and bringing things to scale is critically important here as you know if you just said cachito cabinet well I really do I know that that's what you say oh but there are big achievement gaps everywhere and and not only between racial groups but also between other ethnic and cultural groups and boys and girls in certain cases and poor and rich and so there's a lot of achievement gaps that need to be corrected all around I'm sure there are some here too yes in Connecticut I know that you know part of the issue really is you have one of the best in my opinion state policies on family and community involvement of school family community partnership in fact I put it in full in my textbook for college coursework because the Connecticut policy is clear straightforward based on research it says do this right I think that here as elsewhere there's a gap between policy and implementation but to me policy is meant to be implemented we don't put policy on the book so people can ignore it a bunch of that which never gets tickets and you have state leaders here like the folks I've been working with for decade or more who are knowledgeable experts in school family and community partnerships why this isn't just easy here I'm not sure that's what we've been trying for I'm not sure that we have all the C but not only have all the seeds and very smart people and very caring people but even when you raise a problem it's relatively less of a problem than elsewhere for example people will say to me Oh our big districts oh there's so much trouble and they'll be talking about Hartford Hartford has 30-something schools in our work that's a piece of cake because we work with Baltimore or Detroit or say even st. Paul which is a relatively larger place they've 70 some-odd schools there is no reason why with good leadership and clear guidance I think that that may be part of the Connecticut Connecticut conundrum really is people here are so smart they keep studying things great and the issue really is that's good nothing wrong with that but you got to sort of get down to the basic not recall them structures the leadership structures and these essential elements of program development and then if you can do that then anything that comes along in the very studies can then be kind of inserted as needed as relevant and as as correct if you keep studying and don't have the basics in place then everything sort of just comes along and that's not particularly some of the translation seems to be missing some of the basic building blocks not the translation so much as okay now if we just can agree that at a school level we need a team that's going to work with what you call your school governance council we're going to talk about that today with a group that that team can really take care of this issue without the team the governance council isn't really sure what they're supposed to be doing along this line they're called advisory on one paragraph and they're called active in another paragraph and they really do have a mission that is unique and important but it isn't this mission mm-hmm this mission requires what we call an action team for partnerships at each school preschool elementary middle high school we're going to have as their task to reach out to all parents to get them engaged they will report to the school governance council what they're doing their plans how they're doing they will ask the school governance council for guidance advice help support and encouragement but they don't do the same thing and the the notion that one committee the Action Team pro-partnership could really help this out in any school is what we've learned over the 16 years now that we've had a network the national network the partnership school in places across the country where that team is strong the program improves from year to year because we're not talking about magic right right it improves me and it reaches more families more different families in ways that help children in reading or math or science or writing or attendance or behavior or post-secondary plans and so on and so forth without that team people think that each one of them is responsible for the whole story and that's an impossible task or they think well that's the council their governing councils job and it isn't it's not in the codification for them for the government right or their leadership teams or the school bereavement teams or whatever they are called in or whatever you know yeah and that Action Team for partnership cannot just be anyone we've learned it has to be a partnership team which means teachers parents administrators at the high school level students and even community partners are on it and now that echoes your governance counts so law but it's a different committee and the notion that it's one of the same is really a difficult thing to crack apparently because people said well we have committed right you know you do but they have a mission an important mission so let's get on with the right another mission and if you really want to implement the good Connecticut policy - well higher ed is up is part of the story okay in-service education is the bigger picture for tomorrow in every school and we really work on both sides so our network is about in-service education at the same time we know that if teachers and principals and superintendents we're trained in their advanced courses or their basic crisis to be ready for parents to understand it as soon as a child enters your classroom the family is with them right there in your room and the notion is that's happening is getting better but it's way far from where it needs to be there are more courses than there used to be some of them do use my text and and even this handbook they use as a text within masters degree programs because that's sort of an action right research projects but it's few and far between but that isn't the most important for tomorrow in Connecticut the most important is the in-service sign and the district level leadership necessary within the larger districts to help all schools or in the teeny districts that people have soul-based actually teams for partnerships as a committee and whatever their leadership team or governance council is called it's not difficult in other words we see in our network I would say in any given year 60 to 70 percent of the members in the network in the data we collect every year are showing they're making progress over 80 percent have teams they face 80 90 percent of plans written down they say they're implementing the framework there six types of involvement we have to get to get people engaged in different ways they say that they're beginning to work on the challenges to reach the uninvolved parents fathers moms who work during the school day parents who don't speak English at home they're if they are concerted about it and have joined our network they know we care and they care and we're going to oppress them until they show us they're making progress some don't do as much as they ought to remember I mean again it's not a magic pill this is about leadership and teamwork and an intention so what does great leadership look like this right great leadership in our work we again our our kind of motive of operation is simplified an example of us because people have a lot to do in schools it's a busy crazy place so all that we ask for again at the school level all we ask for is that action team and with then we guide them in the structures and processes that we tested at the district level we ask for a name to leader who will be your leader for partnerships and we will help make that person an expert so that they will be viewed as a legitimate leader for their schools so if you leave capacity-building in the right and so what's what's what's unusual about that well there really have been named leaders for partnerships there's a named reading coach or reading curricular expert there's a math expert a leader for partnership they haven't gotten around to that yet what people say when we don't have any funds but yes you do and that brings us to a key issue right now in Connecticut as we speak there's great debate about the reform that's going on there's you know teachers are involved the governor as a set water bill I think that was recently passed well it's still debated it's pretty new but how giving the expert the expertise that said parent involvement is important how do we get whatever reform is important reform comes to take that into consideration in terms of how that reform is implemented well that's what we're trying to tell you we have now identified the there are eight essential elements for making that happen and they're research-based we don't put out an element until we've studied it they are leadership the superintendent the principal have to this is going to happen teamwork you've got to have the action team you need structure in your school to reach out to be the doers there the action arm of a governing council without that it's not like happened so they would give us an inner tool to say prick ah well and then we asked us to write in an annual plan that's the appendix of a school the appendix or they pendick say I like to call it but it's an action plan for partnerships an annual plan linked to particular games in the school and their plan then they implement and they don't have to be the only ones to implement they can ask the library the community librarian or two parents who have great computer skills or three parents who are Spanish translators or whatever to join this effort based on the written plan implement the plan and then the piece that has been actually missing historically and still too much today is evaluate and evaluate the progress you made according to the goals that have been set in that little Playa de see how it's done because she was not going to get the first time make the next plan we can get any school to write one plan in a training workshop which we do as part of our activities for the team getting to the second plan tells us they really want you