Many parents of public school children take it as an article of faith that their involvement in public education is a good thing. The assumption is that not only will getting involved have a positive impact on our own children, but it will be beneficial for the school in general. But when it comes to the public school system, it turns out that idea isn’t as simple as you might think.
Professors Keith Robinson and Angel L. Harris, authors of The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement With Children’s Education, suggest that involvement as parents generally understand it — helping with homework, attending PTA meetings, volunteering in the classroom, regular communication with teachers — do not have a universally positive correlation with improved academic outcomes for their kids. In fact, according to Robinson and Harris’s meta-analysis of longitudinal studies, in many cases more parental involvement is associated with lower student performance...