Maybe articles such as this will calm some parents. But it makes me wonder about the ability of education research to guide parenting. Looking at the last paragraph I excerpted, who believes that "regularly discussing school experiences with your child" has a causal positive effect on the academic achievement of Hispanic children but a *negative* effect on white children? I doubt that these correlations reflect causation.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/
Parental Involvement Is Overrated
By KEITH ROBINSON and ANGEL L. HARRIS
New York Times
April 12, 2014, 2:32 pm 24 Comments

Most people, asked whether parental involvement benefits children academically, would say, “of course it does.” But evidence from our research suggests otherwise. In fact, most forms of parental involvement, like observing a child’s class, contacting a school about a child’s behavior, helping to decide a child’s high school courses, or helping a child with homework, do not improve student achievement. In some cases, they actually hinder it.

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When involvement did benefit kids academically, it depended on which behavior parents were engaging in, which academic outcome was examined, the grade level of the child, the racial and ethnic background of the family and its socioeconomic standing. For example, regularly discussing school experiences with your child seems to positively affect the reading and math test scores of Hispanic children, to negatively affect test scores in reading for black children, and to negatively affect test scores in both reading and math for white children (but only during elementary school). Regularly reading to elementary school children appears to benefit reading achievement for white and Hispanic children but it is associated with lower reading achievement for black children. Policy makers should not advocate a one-size-fits-all model of parental involvement.

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Keith Robinson, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas, Austin, and Angel L. Harris, a professor of sociology and African and African-American studies at Duke, are the authors of “The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement With Children’s Education.”