Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions: A Powerful Strategy for Strengthening School-Family Partnerships

How can we make it easier for schools and families to work together on behalf of all students? It all begins by tapping into the different strengths educators and parents and caregivers can contribute to building a strong partnership.

Partnering with Parents to Ask the Right Questions, by Luz Santana, Dan Rothstein, and Agnes Bain of the Right Question Institute, presents a deceptively simple strategy for how educators can build effective partnerships with parents—especially those who typically have not been actively involved in their children's schooling. It distills complex, important ideas on effective civic participation into an easy-to-learn process that teaches parents two fundamental skills they can use to support the education of their children, monitor their progress, and advocate for them: asking better questions and participating effectively in key decisions.

Based on more than two decades of work and research in a wide range of low- and moderate-income communities, this book empowers overburdened and under-resourced educators and parents to work together and achieve their common goal of successful students.

This indispensable guide includes case studies spanning K–12 classrooms, and it explores ways to assist struggling students, collaborate on IEPs, and communicate with families of English language learners.

The accessible and easy-to-use format, field-tested advice, and vivid examples from schools that put the advice into practice make this a must-have for everyone from the classroom to the central office.

Luz Santana is the co-director of the Right Question Institute and the co-author of Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions (2011). In the late 1980s, as a parent of children in the Lawrence, MA, public school system, she began to work with other parents as part of a drop-out prevention program. At the time, she was also traveling a path that led from her own personal experiences coming from Puerto Rico and then navigating the welfare and other public systems and continuing on to getting an associate's degree to a bachelor's and a master's degree from Springfield College School of Human Services. One of the founders of the Right Question Institute, she is now a nationally recognized educational innovator, facilitator, and keynote speaker in English and Spanish who has designed a wide range of participatory learning curricula in many fields, including parent involvement, adult education, social services, health care, immigrant advocacy, neighborhood organizing, and voter engagement. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, international press in Spanish, and on National Public Radio.

Dan Rothstein is the co-director of the Right Question Institute and co-author of Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions (2011). He is a former National Academy of Education Spencer Fellow and earned a doctorate from the Harvard Graduate School of Education before becoming the director of neighborhood planning for the City of Lawrence, MA. He was one of the founders of the Right Question Institute (formerly known as the "Right Question Project") and has collaborated with Luz Santana and other staff at the Right Question Institute to create curricula, teaching materials, articles, and books that are widely used to support adoption of the Right Question Strategy. His work has been featured on National Public Radio and other media outlets, and he is a frequent presenter and keynote speaker at national conferences and symposia.

Agnes S. Bain is a lifelong resident of Lawrence, MA, and began work with Santana and Rothstein when her children attended Lawrence public schools. She is one of the founders (and a past president and current board member) of the Right Question Institute. She has helped develop the institute's original concept of micro-democracy and has contributed to innovative teaching materials and resources for promoting greater citizen participation on all levels of a democratic society. She has a PhD from Boston University and is a professor of government at Suffolk University where she has taught courses on community advocacy and topics in democracy. Agnes's kitchen table has a special place in Right Question Institute history as the location where some of its best ideas and curricula were developed.