Chapter 2: Family Involvement in Federal Education Programs

The federal government entered the arena of public education in 1965 as a response to the social action of the times. To equalize opportunities for underachieving groups, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act and Head Start authorized federal monies to fund public education and child development programs. These programs fostered the emergence of major changes within public education. One of these changes focused on parent involvement in educational programs.

This chapter reviews programs funded by the U.S. Department of Education that include provisions for parent involvement in K-12 schooling. For the purposes of this article, parents are defined broadly to include all family members who have responsibilities for the care and upbringing of children and youth, including stepparents, grandparents, and older siblings. Family involvement and parent involvement are used interchangeably to denote activities of all these possible resources in contemporary families.