Abstract
Academic achievement for African American and Latino students is lower than for White and Asian students. To help overcome the achievement gap, policymakers and social scientists have focused on the relationships between student outcomes and family, community, and schools. Family, church, and community have always played significant roles in providing educational opportunities for diverse youth. In this multisite, mixed methods study, a skill building intervention for enhancing parents' engagement in their children's education was implemented with 107 families and its effectiveness analyzed using ANOVA and focus groups. Differences were found by setting as well as between parents of students receiving gifted education and parents of special education students.