Fathers at School Give Children an Edge, Study Finds

It is a formula for school achievement as old as apples for the teacher and as new as homework done on the Internet: Fathers’ participation in their kids’ schools, the Department of Education has found, boosts the children’s performance and wards off misbehavior and academic failure.

Kids get better marks and are less likely to repeat a grade or be expelled if their fathers are involved in school activities, the study concluded. Among kids whose fathers alone were deeply involved at their schools, almost half brought home report cards bearing mostly A’s. And for kids whose mothers were involved at their schools, the addition of a father’s participation increased the likelihood of high academic performance.

The survey-based report, released at the White House on Thursday by Vice President Al Gore, found that fathers’ involvement made a substantial difference whether or not they lived with their children. But it also found a low rate of such involvement by fathers.

In spite of a burgeoning movement among middle-class fathers to involve themselves in their children’s lives, more than half of all fathers in two-parent families--and fully 82% of fathers who do not live with their children--have no significant involvement in their children’s schools.

Gore called the report “a wake-up call” for fathers and those who play minimal roles in their children’s development. “Fathers, even conscientious fathers, have been leaving this role to mothers too much,” he added.

The report comes as hundreds of thousands of Christian men begin converging on Washington to renew their commitments to faith and family at Saturday’s Promise Keepers rally. More broadly, its findings support a growing body of evidence showing that fathers play a pivotal role in their children’s health and development.

While that is not news to many men, or to mothers who have pressed their partners to do more, there had been little hard evidence to prove it. Previous research had underscored the critical importance of a mother’s active role in her children’s school achievement but none had singled out the role of fathers.

That is where the Education Department survey breaks new ground.

The study, prompted by a Clinton administration directive that ordered federal agencies to place greater emphasis on the role of fathers, found that a father’s participation tended to lift his children’s academic performance--regardless of parents’ income, race, ethnicity or parental education.

For men like Walter Waddles, a 54-year-old custodial father of two sons in South-Central Los Angeles, the study underscores a couple of things that have long been clear to him: Children--especially boys, he said--need regular reminders of their fathers’ expectations, and there is no substitute for spending time in their schools and in their schooling.

Waddles, a self-employed landscaper and gardener, reads and does homework with his sons, goes to parent-teacher meetings and volunteers for the school district and a police advisory board. In hopes of bringing up the grades of his sons, seventh-grader Tyree and eight-grader Tijuan, Waddles has insisted that they participate in a tutoring program. He has also offered incentives for improved grades, including helping 13-year-old Tijuan save for a car and offering 12-year-old Tyree a mini-bike and a chance to go out for the football team.

“The boys really need that positive father image. When it’s there, it makes the boys more responsible,” said Waddles. “I suppose it’s a God-given thing: Women, I think, spoil boys and maybe fathers spoil girls. So boys can get away with a lot more with a mother. Fathers tend to be a lot harder with boys.”

Indeed, many psychologists believe that, in general, a father’s influence on his children complements a slightly different approach typical of mothers. Mothers tend to be more concerned with a child’s emotional life, whereas fathers typically are more assertive about encouraging achievement and independence.

“Fathers are more oriented toward the product: What are your grades?” observed Wade Horne, director of the National Fatherhood Initiative, based in Gaithersburg, Md. “It should come as no great surprise that, when they are more active, you get more of the output that they focus on.”

That is a familiar pattern in the home of 14-year-old Christopher Klinger of Austin, Texas, whose psychologist father, Ron Klinger, has been an active presence in his school and at homework time. Christopher’s mother, counselor Gay Klinger, admits that she is “much more protective, much more inclined to keep him dependent.”

By contrast, his father “has pushed” him, said Christopher, who appeared with his parents at the White House on Thursday. “He’s never let me do less than what I can.”

As if to illustrate the point, Ron Klinger, hearing his son asked about his grades, bobbed up behind Christopher to answer the question. “He’s never brought home a B!” crowed Klinger.