{"id":10450,"date":"2022-11-15T08:27:56","date_gmt":"2022-11-15T16:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/35.90.209.29\/?p=10450"},"modified":"2025-05-13T10:29:06","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T17:29:06","slug":"new-causal-research-study-shows-talkingpoints-improves-student-outcomes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/blog\/new-causal-research-study-shows-talkingpoints-improves-student-outcomes\/10450\/","title":{"rendered":"New causal research study shows TalkingPoints improves student outcomes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Written by TalkingPoints<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research shows the family engagement tool increased academic achievement and attendance for students overall and for Black students, Latino students, students with disabilities and English language learners in a large urban school district<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>San Francisco, CA <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014 Today, TalkingPoints released a new causal research study, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3AfKNTl\"><b>Engaging Families Leads to Student Academic Gains and Increased Attendance<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, which found that using TalkingPoints leads to higher test scores, course proficiency improvements, and lower absenteeism rates in a large urban, diverse school district. These gains are even more pronounced for traditionally underserved students, including Black students, Latino students, students with disabilities, and English language learners.<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The study found statistically significant improvements on state standardized tests. Overall, students saw higher math test scores by 9 points, a gain that represents 7 months of additional learning for the average student.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThis research highlights that building meaningful family-school partnerships is no longer a nice-to-have practice, but should be an integral initiative in every school to improve the academic and wellbeing of students,\u201d says Heejae Lim, founder and CEO of TalkingPoints. \u201cThanks to the influx of federal dollars to mitigate pandemic learning loss, we are starting to see more district leaders recognizing that family-school partnerships is a critical strategy for closing education gaps in our schools.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The study also found using TalkingPoints resulted in course proficiency improvements in English language arts and math by 7% in both subjects. Black students had course proficiency improvements in both English language arts and math by 8%; and Latino students had course proficiency improvements in English language arts and math by 10% and 11%, respectively. English language learners saw course proficiency improvements by 12% in both subjects.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Finally, the study found a decrease of 15% in the student absenteeism rate for district schools using TalkingPoints compared to those not using TalkingPoints. These attendance improvements were greater among traditionally underserved students.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For Black students, absenteeism rates decreased by 22%. For Latino students, the decrease was 17%. For students with disabilities, the decrease was 25%, and for English Language Learners, the decrease was 18%.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The findings are statistically significant<\/span> <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">and control for individual characteristics, including race and ethnicity, English language learner status, grade, and special education status, as well as school characteristics, including demographics, enrollment, and free and reduced priced lunch rates. It also controlled for non-varying school characteristics like Title I status and time differences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cSchools must create strong partnerships with families to accelerate learning and wellbeing gains for all students, while\u00a0 also closing the gap for the most traditionally underserved students. Systematically breaking down barriers to effective family engagement through an intervention like TalkingPoints is an effective and cost-efficient strategy,\u201d said Lim.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Based on this research\u2019s findings, TalkingPoints recommends schools, districts, and communities integrate family-school partnerships as a key lever in improving student outcomes:\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Integrate family engagement as a part of districts\u2019 strategic plans and recognize family engagement as a core tool to improve student academic and wellbeing outcomes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prioritize communication with families as a strategy in school and district improvement plans to improve student attendance.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ensure all teachers and relevant staff have access to a technology platform that removes barriers to engaging all families and allows for effective communication.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Provide ongoing professional development to teachers and staff about how to leverage families to support student outcomes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The study looked at student achievement and absenteeism rate over multiple years in a large U.S. urban school district that serves 30,000 students, 90% of whom identify as students of color and 70% of who are from low-income households. Three in 10 students are English language learners and 15% are students with disabilities. The study\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">analyzed student-level data, including standards-based grades and state standardized assessments. \u201cEngaging Families Leads to Student Academic Gains and Increased Attendance\u201d is a quasi-experimental study that meets the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/ies.ed.gov\/ncee\/wwc\/essa\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Tier 2 standard of evidence<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Download the research to learn more at <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3AfKNTl\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/research\/<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3RoiloJ\"><b><i>TalkingPoints<\/i><\/b><\/a> <i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is an education technology nonprofit that supports school districts in connecting families and teachers for the success and wellbeing of each and every student. TalkingPoints\u2019 multilingual platform uses two-way translated communication and personalized content in more than 145 languages to facilitate meaningful family-school partnerships. Fueling this unique approach is a relentless focus on eliminating barriers to engaging families, including language, time, mindsets, and capacity. For additional information about TalkingPoints, please visit<\/span><\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/3tn2QEK\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> www.talkingpts.org<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Written by TalkingPoints Research shows the family engagement tool increased academic achievement and attendance for students overall and for Black students, Latino students, students with disabilities and English language learners [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":10451,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[229,237,25,16,232,239,238,233,212,22],"class_list":["post-10450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-attendance","tag-causal-research","tag-education","tag-family-engagement","tag-grades","tag-improvement","tag-press-release","tag-standardized-testing","tag-student-success","tag-talkingpoints"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/talkingpts.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}