Offering FAST produced no meaningful, enduring effects on family functioning, family-school relationships, academic learning, or social-behavioral outcomes in a 60-school cluster RCT¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · causal r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2018 · checked against its sources 2026-10-19 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? In the school-level RCT, the report summarises FAST as having no meaningful, enduring effects on parental social support, parent-child relationship building, parent-school engagement, the home environment, student academic learning, or student social and behavioral development; two isolated small effects (more family conflict in Cohort 2 at the end of Grade 1, .26 SD; higher parent-teacher Joining in Cohort 1 at the end of kindergarten, .28 SD) did not recur and may be spurious. → Bos 2018

Evidence¶

Bos 2018¶

Bos, J., Spier, E., Bandeira de Mello, V., González, R., & Huang, F. (2018). Investing in Innovation (i3) Validation Study of Families and Schools Together (FAST) Final Report. American Institutes for Research. https://evidenceforessa.org/program/families-and-schools-together-fast/

q3 · i? · causal · r2

Cluster RCT with 60 Philadelphia elementary schools randomized to FAST or control (30 each), 1,396 kindergarten students across two cohorts, analyzed with two-level models nesting students in schools. The report found "no meaningful, enduring effects (positive or negative) of FAST" on the key outcomes in its logic model. Its domain results do include two isolated, statistically significant small effects, which it calls possibly spurious: more family conflict (CPRS Conflict subscale) for Cohort 2 at the end of Grade 1 (effect size .26 SD), and a higher PTRS Joining score for Cohort 1 at the end of kindergarten (.28 SD), which disappeared in Grades 1 and 2 and was not found for Cohort 2.

"For the larger RCT, we found no meaningful, enduring effects (positive or negative) of FAST on any of the key outcomes included in the logic model underlying the intervention. Specifically, we found no statistically significant program effects of FAST on parental social support, parent-child relationship building, parent-school engagement, the home environment, student academic learning, or student social and behavioral development."

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Social Supports — outcome: instruction changes it

Related Claims¶

• Parent involvement is associated with higher academic achievement in meta-analyses of mostly correlational studies — the general claim this finding bears on, with the studies behind it
• Small isolated effects on family conflict (negative) and parent-teacher joining (positive) appeared but were not enduring and may be spurious — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
• The impact of FAST did not differ significantly by student subgroups or school characteristics in the RCT — related
• FAST take-up was far below the projected 60 percent participation rate, with only about 20 percent typical participation per year — related
• The study concluded FAST is unlikely to meaningfully contribute to turning around low-performing schools, though reading benefits may exist for participating families — related
• Family engagement in schools is closely linked to improved student academic achievement, social skills, and fewer behavior issues — reports the opposite
• Parental involvement has a small to moderate, practically meaningful relationship with students' academic achievement — related
• Fidelity of FAST program-component delivery was high (97–98 percent overall), but reach to families fell far below design expectations — related
• Students who attended FAST three or more times showed strong positive effects on Grade 1 reading and more modest effects on mathematics, but a strong negative effect on kindergarten attendance — related