Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk: Report #18

The Center for Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk (CRESPAR) was established in 1994 and continued until 2004. It was a collaboration between Johns Hopkins University and Howard University. CRESPAR’s mission was to conduct research, development, evaluation, and dissemination of replicable strategies designed to transform schooling for students who were placed at risk due to inadequate institutional responses to such factors as poverty, ethnic minority status, and non-English-speaking home background.This project analyzes data from the parent component of the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 to investigate changes in family educational involvement between students’ eighth and twelfth grades. Findings show that the patterns of parental involvement in adolescents’ education change between the two grades. During high school, parents become less involved with monitoring students’ individual behaviors and more concerned with their learning opportunities at school. By students’ eighth grade, nearly all parents had post-secondary expectations, but few had taken specific actions to secure funds for college. During adolescents’ senior year in high school, most parents report frequent discussions with them concerning post-secondary schools. At that time, parents also report that they have some knowledge aboutOffice of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education (R-117-D40005