When speaking about strategies to recover learning post-pandemic and accelerate educational progress, the term “family engagement” has, in many ways, gotten watered down and become more of an overused catchphrase than a focused strategy. Yet specific outreach and engagement strategies used by schools and districts along with local and national nonprofit, parent-facing organizations have led to measurable results for students, including increased attendance; enrollment in tutoring, summer learning and other learning recovery programs; improved behavior; and increased interest and achievement in reading and other academics. This means that despite the term’s redundancy, family engagement is actually working to advance student progress. 

It is important to understand the concrete strategies and actionable models that are effective for parents and families, school systems and community organizations, and especially students. Tactics and practices — such as sending text messages with tips and invitations, creating space and events to connect and build social capital among parents, providing devices and tools that parents can use at home with their children, and many others — are being tried and tested in communities and much has been learned about the effectiveness of these and other strategies. In this continuation of the “Big Bets Working” series, we plan to investigate innovative engagement and outreach strategies that actually work for parents and families and lead to important results for young learners.

Join us on May 21, from 3–4:30 p.m. ET, for an opportunity to engage with national and local family and parent engagement leaders who can speak to both evidence-based best practices in play across the country and on-the-ground strategies that have yielded big impacts in local communities. We also hope that one or two parents will be able to join us to share directly about what works for them and what inspires and incentivizes them to take the most effective actions to support their kids’ learning progress. We know that “family engagement” is far more than just a trite idiom and is, in fact, working to advance student development and learning.