This paper critiques and comments on symposium presentations focused on issues related to parent involvement in educational activities and the schools. Although bureaucratic agencies have become important influences on education, recognition is growing that the family has a primary role in training and educating children. The involvement of parents and other community members in schools has been found to show a measurable effect upon student achievement. Three main directions for improving family-school relationships in ways likely to develop productive environments for learning are as follows: (1) the curriculum should be conceived not as a printed course of study but as an environment for learning; (2) analysis of parents' and teachers' assumptions can result in the formation of assumptions that facilitate parent and teacher cooperation; and (3) following this anlaysis parents and teachers can be teamed for collaboration in building learning environments. A major problem impeding the development of curricula through which the family and the school reinforce each other is the increasing separation of families and schools. Families seek privacy and schools become increasingly bureaucratic and resistant to outside influences. In the final analysis, the goal of parent-school cooperation is continuity, not identity, between home and school. (Author/RH)