Giving Compass' Take:

• Researchers report that a new tool can measure parent perceptions of how they engage with their children’s education.

• Would you want to implement tools like this in your own children’s school system? How can nonprofits and philanthropists support building parent power?

• Here’s how parents make education more impactful.

The tool also offers school administrators a quick, economical, and efficient alternative to the often expensive and cumbersome measures currently available.

A study explaining the development and testing of the Parent Perceptions of Overall School Experiences Scale (P-OSE), one of the few such tools validated in both English and Spanish, appears in the Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment.

Previous research has demonstrated how active and rewarding family engagement can contribute to student success in the classroom, but measuring that engagement and determining what’s meaningful has historically been challenging.

“There are many measures available to school districts and researchers that assess different components of parents’ experiences. But practically speaking, schools need tools that can be applied quickly, that are affordable and easy to use, and that provide a comprehensive snapshot of parent engagement—we’ve done that,” says lead author Annahita Ball, an assistant professor in the University at Buffalo School of Social Work.

Read the full article about parent's perception of school by Bert Gambini at Futurity.