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With the introduction of the Department of Education Investing in Innovation Fund (i3), innovation has emerged as a hot topic in education. In this issue, we consider what innovation means and how to foster it within the field of family engagement.

Topics covered in this issue include:

  • A commentary from HFRP Consultant Margaret Caspe with input from Heather Weiss, Sherry Cleary, and Jane Quinn about innovation in their respective disciplines, presented in a framework designed to help schools and organizations develop breakthrough ideas.
  • A new case study from New Visions for Public Schools higlighting a pioneering effort in New York City to engage families in students’ academic success and college readiness by supporting parents in understanding student data.
  • The new National Family, School, and Community Engagement Working Group paper compiling 12 examples of leading innovations in family engagement as an integral and effective strategy in systemic educational reform.
  • Voices From the Field, where we hear from Children’s Aid Society who describe how an Early Head Start/Head Start program in East Harlem reinvented its family engagement strategies to incorporate parent advocacy for undocumented immigrants and used an evaluation tool to advance this work.
  • A teaching case highlighting the dilemmas that arise when innovations in teaching methods and curriculum are neither developed in collaboration with families and communities nor well-communicated to these critical stakeholders.

Click here to read May's FINE Newsletter: Innovations in Family Engagement.

© 2012 Presidents and Fellows of Harvard College
Published by Harvard Family Research Project