http://www.slate.com/articles/life/..._at_your_kid_s_school_does_not_make.htmlBan School Bake Sales
Do American parents spend too much time volunteering at their kids’ schools?
By Amanda Ripley
Slate
Thursday, Sept. 5, 2013
...
In a 2009 study of parenting in 13 countries and regions, parents who volunteered in school
extracurricular activities had children who performed worse in reading, on average, than parents
who did not volunteer—even after controlling for children’s backgrounds. Out of 13 very different
places, there were only two (Denmark and New Zealand) in which parental volunteering had any
positive effect on reading, and it was small.
How could this be? Weren’t the parents who volunteered in the school community showing their
children how much they valued education? The data are mystifying, but other research within the
U.S. has revealed the same dynamic: Volunteering in school and attending school events seems
to have little effect on how much kids learn.
One possible explanation is that volunteering parents were more active precisely because their
children were struggling at school. And it’s possible their kids would be doing even worse if the
parents had not gotten involved.
Or it might be that parents who spent their limited time and energy coaching football and
organizing school auctions simply had less time and energy for the other kinds of activities that
actually did help kids learn.
In that same international study, parents who routinely read to their young children raised
teenagers who performed significantly better on a test of critical thinking in reading years later—
even after controlling for the effects of socioeconomic background. Likewise, parents who
discussed movies, books, and the news with their kids had teenagers who not only performed
better in reading—but reported enjoying reading more overall.
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Amanda Ripley is the author of the new book, "The Smartest Kids in the World -- and How They Got That Way". The Tiger Mothers have anticipated her conclusions:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/education/12parents.htmlNew York Times
November 12, 2008
School District Tries to Lure Asian Parents
By WINNIE HU
JERICHO, N.Y. — For school officials here, the numbers did not add up. Even as enrollment swelled to 3,200, from 2,600 a decade ago, attendance at Parent-Teacher Association meetings shriveled by half. Even as more students got accepted to Ivy League schools, turnout for the guidance department’s information nights was so anemic that counselors cajoled students to come — and bring along their parents.
Then teachers and administrators noticed something else: Jericho High School’s 90-member orchestra had become 70 percent Asian-American (the student body over all is about 30 percent Asian-American), but it still played for a mostly white audience at concerts with many empty seats.
The Chinese and Korean families that flocked to Jericho for its stellar schools shared their Jewish and Italian predecessors’ priorities on excellent education. But the new diversity of the district has revealed a cultural chasm over the meaning of parental involvement. Many of the Asian-Americans whose children now make up a third of the district’s enrollment grew up in places where parents showed up on campus only when their children were in trouble.
“They think, ‘My kids are doing well — why should I come?’ ” said Sophia Bae, 38, a Korean immigrant who shied away from P.T.A. meetings when she first moved here from Queens four years ago. Now a member of the organization, she invites other Koreans to her home and encourages them to participate in pretzel sales. “They don’t realize it’s necessary to come and join the school to understand their kids’ lives.”
