A couple of years ago, in The Great School Rethink, I wrote at some length about the need to reimagine the parent-teacher partnership. In our era of chronic absenteeism, rampant misbehavior, concerns about youth well-being, and dismal academic performance, that kind of effort has never been more urgent. Well, one organization tackling this challenge is Learning Heroes, which reaches 20 to 30 million parents and educators each year and has been working since 2014 to equip families and educators in teaming up to advance student learning. The founder and CEO of Learning Heroes is Bibb Hubbard, who came to this work from senior roles in the Clinton administration, Widmeyer Communications, and the Gates Foundation. I thought it would be a good time to pick her brain. Here’s what she had to say.
–Rick
Rick: How did Learning Heroes get started?
Bibb: Cindi Williams, now the CEO of Waypoint Education Partners, and I co-founded Learning Heroes in 2014 to bring families into the conversation around the Common Core State Standards. We thought that they were a missing stakeholder in the design and implementation of the standards. When parents pushed back against Common Core math, characterizing it as confusing and frustrating, we saw a need to more directly support families in understanding that the standards are content benchmarks every child should know and master—not a curriculum. One of the first things we did was poll parents, revealing that 90% believed their child was on grade level in reading and math, despite the reality that just over a third of students were proficient in 2015. This finding explained a great deal to us about what was broken in K–12 education and marked the beginning of the journey we are on to this day.
Rick: I’ve heard some remarkable figures about the reach of Learning Heroes. Can you speak to that?
Bibb: Our core belief is that we move further, faster when parents and schools work together. Given that we reach between 20 and 30 million families and educators annually, we don’t do this alone. We have partnered with over 500 organizations, states, districts, and schools to conduct research and create and promote resources based on our findings. We are proud of our collaborations with amazing entities doing incredible work on behalf of families, including Univision, National PTA, PBS, Khan Academy, UnidosUS, and the National Urban League, among many others, as well as states such as Texas, Massachusetts, Virginia, Arkansas, and California.
Rick: One of your priorities has been helping parents get a better sense of how their child is actually faring in school. What’s the issue?
Bibb: Parents are problem solvers, but they can’t solve a problem they don’t know exists. In 2024, only 28% of 8th graders were proficient in math, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results in reading were similar. Our research shows that 79% of parents report their child receives all B’s and above—and that to a parent, a good grade equals grade-level mastery. However, report cards often mask grade-level ability. They are subjective and include nonmastery-related topics, such as attendance, behavior, and completing assignments on time. Furthermore, most teachers aren’t expected or trained to share grade-level performance with families, contributing to parents’ often inflated view of their children’s performance. We see that when parents know their child is behind, they spring into action to address where their child needs the extra help.
Rick: How is Learning Heroes trying to address this?
Bibb: Although parents often have “voice” and “choice” in their child’s education today, they often lack access to the information needed to make the best decisions for their children. That’s where we come in. To help parents understand how to measure their child’s performance and assess how well their school is preparing their child for the future, we have a few approaches. In addition to our research, we supply families with actionable, research-based resources in English and Spanish to support learning at home. We also provide information about how parents can effectively partner with schools and we coach principals and teachers to engage with families as an instructional strategy core to the school’s success. To work upstream, we partner with state education leaders in crafting strategies to communicate with families about student performance. In fact, later this month, we are revealing 10 major insights based on our 10 years of research and expertise that ground the sector as students’ learning experiences are being reimagined.
Rick: Do you have any other initiatives?
Bibb: For families, we partner with local advocacy organizations to design and execute parent action and awareness campaigns called Go Beyond Grades. Deploying the campaign in eight cities, we’ve seen incredible results. After one year of a sustained campaign, schools across Tarrant County, Texas, saw a 12% drop in the number of parents believing their child reads at grade level—from 96% to 84%. This is a big step toward the 52% of students reading on grade level. For school leaders, we offer a nine-month institute that provides one-on-one coaching and peer-networking opportunities to ensure their school’s approach to family engagement is anchored in their overall instructional strategy. We’ve continued to see increasing demand for this program, with our enrollment almost doubling each year.
Rick: When it comes to the relationship between parents and schools, there’s been a lot of rough sledding since the pandemic. What have you seen?
Bibb: Many hoped the pandemic would break the status quo and create more opportunities for parents to partner with their children’s teachers and schools. Instead, school routines after the pandemic mostly went back to “normal,” keeping parents on the sidelines. Our recent study with TNTP found that schools with strong family engagement pre-pandemic had lower chronic absenteeism and better achievement outcomes post-pandemic than schools with weak family engagement. Now, with school choice spreading and more learning environments available to families, it’s essential to focus on building strong relationships between families and schools as a success strategy that can deliver tangible results.
Rick: What can educators do to more effectively partner with families?
Bibb: Education is a human-centered endeavor where trust building is key. It begins with school leaders who bring the mindset, policies, practices, and support in co-creating a learning community with families. Successful strategies include teachers introducing themselves at the beginning of the year and asking families to do the same—our Dear Teacher letter for families is a great example; getting into the community, such as by paying a home visit to families; and pairing teachers with families so every family has a consistent opportunity to share their needs, priorities, and concerns. Once a relationship is established, parents and teachers can share information more easily and address any issues or concerns as a team. It’s critical for schools to go beyond the typical once-a-year survey that few parents respond to, as this doesn’t provide an in-depth understanding of families’ goals for their children. Improving that relationship takes a lot of hard work, but there are schools all across the country leading the way and showing that it can be done.
Rick: As you know, educators can feel like they’re sometimes scapegoated when parents aren’t doing their part. What are your thoughts on that?
Bibb: As a mom of two boys, I know that parents are the experts on their child. They are also their child’s first and most important teacher. Educators shouldn’t be held solely responsible for their students’ academic performance. In fact, when we ask parents who is most responsible for their child’s educational success, they rank teachers third, with parents and students vying for first and second place, depending upon the age of the child. This issue is a perfect example of where relationship building can be game-changing. When you know each other and everyone works together, the blame-and-shame game can be avoided.
Rick: Last question: If you’ve one piece of advice for how educators can best partner with parents, what is it?
Bibb: Get to know your families—invite them to share their stories to understand their needs, priorities, concerns, and goals for their children. Work together to co-create a strong learning community by building the capacity of school leaders and teachers to share complex data with families in an ongoing and supportive way, partner with families and students in developing learning plans, and create opportunities to both be active in the community and welcome students into the school building. These strategies can help create the conditions for thriving and flourishing students, educators, and families.
