While we know that school-family engagement contributes to better academic and socioemotional outcomes for students, research shows that minority immigrant parents are less likely to engage with schools and report more barriers to participation when compared to native-born parents.
TalkingPoints is a two-way messaging platform that helps schools and teachers communicate with families in their home languages, enabling stronger partnership to support student growth. In 2022, TalkingPoints conducted a quasi-experimental design study that sought to answer two questions:
- Did the use of TalkingPoints impact student academic outcomes and attendance?
- Did impact on student outcomes vary for different student groups, including groups disaggregated by race and ethnicity, special education status, and English language learner status?
The study, which allows TalkingPoints to meet ESSA “Tier 2” evidence standards, compared student achievement at schools that were early adopters of the TalkingPoints platform to students at schools that adopted the program model later. It reported that students at TalkingPoints schools whose families engaged with the platform had higher test scores, better grades, and lower absenteeism rates than those at schools that had not implemented TalkingPoints. This pattern was even more pronounced for traditionally underserved students, including Black students, Latino students, students with disabilities, and English language learners.
Alongside TalkingPoints’ commitment to building the evidence about its impact on family engagement and student achievement, the organization has continued to scale to meet school demand for its platform and reach more families. Between SY 2020-21 and SY 2021-22, TalkingPoints increased student reach by 47 percent, reaching over two million students.
Overdeck Family Foundation began funding TalkingPoints in 2020, when its impact was measured by teacher/family survey data and a modified feasibility study by WestEd conducted in 2018. Over the last two years, we have worked with the organization to build research and data capacity by growing the team and adding a Strategic Data Project Fellow, which positioned it to launch and complete this quasi-experimental study, showing emerging impacts from a low-cost, light-touch, and easily-scaled intervention.
