Circa 2003.

Here we go in 2014.

Parental Involvement Is Overrated

Most people, asked whether parental involvement benefits children academically, would say, “of course it does.” But evidence from our research suggests otherwise. In fact, most forms of parental involvement, like observing a child’s class, contacting a school about a child’s behavior, helping to decide a child’s high school courses, or helping a child with homework, do not improve student achievement. In some cases, they actually hinder it.

Over the past few years, we conducted an extensive study of whether the depth of parental engagement in children’s academic lives improved their test scores and grades. We pursued this question because we noticed that while policy makers were convinced that parental involvement positively affected children’s schooling outcomes, academic studies were much more inconclusive.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/parental-involvement-is-overrated/?_php=true&_type=blogs&hp&rref=opinion&_r=0

Great slideshow of the best Hubble Telescope images, with explanations of what you see.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/hubble-heritage/8662120961/in/set-72157642356592763/