Transcript Boosting Parental Involvement: Results from a National Survey of Parents Conducted by Public Agenda for Communicating for Social Change with support from the GE Foundation January.

Boosting Parental Involvement:
Results from a National Survey of
Parents
Conducted by Public Agenda
for Communicating for Social Change
with support from the GE Foundation
January 2012
Who We Are
Public Agenda
Non-profit, non-partisan opinion research and engagement organization
with extensive work in K-12 education
Communicating for Social Change
Utilizing democratic problem-solving to build momentum and reflect citizen
values
GE Foundation
Supports U.S. and international efforts to develop higher standards of
health, education, and environmental awareness around the globe.
Methodology
• Goal: Learn more about how parents define and think about their
involvement with their child’s education and school
• Telephone interviews with a nationally representative sample of 846
parents of children in public school
• Interviews conducted from May 31 – July 3, 2011, in English and
Spanish
• Included landline and cell phone samples
• Full results, plus additional analysis of most involved, knowledgeable
parents versus least involved, knowledgeable parents
• In 2012, Communicating for Social Change will conduct research
aimed at finding strategies to help least engaged parents become
more involved
Most parents worry about the quality of the U.S.
education system
Half say that U.S. education is falling
behind the rest of the world
Q: When it comes to education, do you think the
United States is getting ahead of the rest of the
world, just keeping up, or is it falling behind?
Only half are confident that local high
school graduates have skills for college
Q: When students graduate from your local high schools,
would you say that most graduate with the skills to
succeed in college, or do you think that most of them do
not have the skills to succeed in college?
But most are optimistic about their own child’s
schooling
• 88% are very or somewhat confident their child’s school is doing “a good
job teaching them what they need to know to be ready for next year”.
• 68% say their child’s academic performance in the past school year was
"excellent" (35%) or "very good” (33%).
• 37% give their child’s school an “A” rating, and 38% give their child’s
school a “B” rating
• 24% give their child’s school a rating of “C” or below
Criticism of schools generally, but high approval rates for child’s school is a
long-term pattern in polling on education
However, many parents are poorly informed in key
areas
Nearly half admit minimal knowledge
about how their child’s school stacks up
academically
Q: How much would you say you know about how your
child’s school ranks academically compared to others in
your area?
And few know much about local school
leadership
•
•
28% say they know “a lot” about the
qualifications of their child's principal
23% say they know “a lot” about
what the superintendent is actually
responsible for.
Many parents don’t know what their children should be
learning, or what their education options are
Fewer than 4 in 10 know a lot about
other school options
Only 22% could name an academic milestone—such
as learning the times table—that their child had
met in the past school year
Q: How much would you say you know about the options you
have to send your child to another public or charter school [if
you wanted to]?
Key to other answers
Many parents question the need for more
challenging academics
I would like my child’s
school to have more
difficult classes, even if it
means my child will have
to work much harder to
get the same grades they
have been getting
My child works hard
enough as is, the
school does not need
to make classes more
difficult
Refused
Don’t know
Parents are also split on the importance of their
child attending a top college
Q: Which of these three statements comes closest to your view?
It’s fine if my child does
not want to go to college,
that is their choice
It is very important
that my child goes to
the best college they
can get into
As long as my child
goes to a college
that he/she likes, it
doesn’t really
matter to me which
he/she goes to
Most parents question the wisdom of too much
academic pressure
• 78% say the statement “as long as children try hard,
they shouldn't feel bad about poor grades in school”
is close to their own view
– 47% say it is “very close”
• 8 in 10 agree that “as much as parents try to help,
children’s academic success still has a lot to do with
their natural abilities”.
Parents agree that parental involvement is crucial and that most schools welcome it
65% say they “wish [they] could be doing more” about their involvement
in their children’s education (vs. only 34% who are “satisfied with the way
things are”)
68% say that the quality of their local schools is “one of the main
reasons” they live in their current neighborhood
6 in 10 say that in their household, homework almost always gets done at
a regular, set time (about 4 in 10 say it “depends on the day”)
60% say their child’s school “goes out of its way to encourage and
welcome parents to get involved”
–33% say their school “mostly leaves it up to parents”, and only 6% say their
school “seems to discourage” parents
Most common forms of parental involvement
At least once
this school year
3-10 times
this school year
Attend a scheduled parent teacher conference
80%
42%
Contact your child’s teachers, either in person, by phone
or online OUTSIDE OF parent-teacher conferences
77%
52%
Attend a sporting event, play or other extracurricular
activity that your child participated in
77%
45%
Take your child to a concert, art exhibit or other cultural
event
70%
59%
Attend a PTA meeting
32%
50%
Attend a public hearing or meeting about your school
30%
34%
Most parents see less need for involvement in the
later grades
Q: Parents are often less involved in their children’s academic work in
later grades. Which of these statements comes closer to your feeling
about parental involvement as children get older?
Less parental
involvement in later
grades probably
means a student’s
academic work will
suffer
It is natural to be less
involved– it is a sign
the student is learning
to be independent and
to manage school on
their own
Don’t know
Refused
“Major reasons” why parental involvement declines in later
grades - according to parents with children in grades 6-12
47%
Schoolwork becomes more difficult for parents to help with
31%
Parents don’t always know the right questions to ask their children
about how they are doing in school
31%
Older kids have independent schedules so it is harder to find time
to really talk to them about school
22%
Teachers don’t really want parents interfering with their classes
21%
There are so many teachers in later grades that it is hard to keep in
contact with them
So what would help?
%
responding
“very effective”
%
responding
“somewhat
effective”
%
responding
“not too
effective”
E-mail, phone or in person conversations four times a year with all of
your child’s teachers about how your child is doing academically in
school
67%
24%
6%
Knowing more about what benchmarks and skills your child should be
mastering at the end of every school year
58%
33%
4%
Offering morning, evening and weekend appointments with teachers
and school officials for parents who work
55%
34%
7%
Requiring the parents of failing students to attend programs that
teach them how to help their kids learn
45%
34%
12%
Having a public ranking of how teachers do each year according to
their students’ test scores made available
34%
35%
16%
Having more charter schools available in your area
25%
26%
22%
A closer look: The most involved and least
involved parents
• Most involved parents—based on their
responses to the survey
– More likely to be mothers
– More likely to be college-educated
– No clear racial or ethnic differences
– No clear differences between single-parent and
two-parent families
Key differences between most and least involved
parents
Most Involved
Least Involved
54% say they are “very involved”
both at school and in child’s
academic work (at home)
21% say they are “very involved”
both at school and in child’s
academic work (at home)
81% say they know “a lot” about
“specific academic milestones” child
should have met in past year
37% say they know “a lot” about
specific academic milestones child
should have met in past year
64% say they know “a lot” about
other schools their children could
attend—either public or charter
14% say they know “a lot” about
other schools their children could
attend—either public or charter
More key differences between most and least
involved parents
Most Involved
Least Involved
98%: Contacted a teacher outside of
55%: Contacted a teacher outside of
parent-teacher conferences at least once parent-teacher conferences at least once
during past school year
during past school year
71%: Quarterly talks with teachers would 58%: Quarterly conversations with
be very effective in improving parent
teachers would be very effective in
involvement.
improving parent
71%: Knowing more about child’s
academic benchmarks would be “very
effective” way to improve parent
involvement
55%: Knowing more about child’s
academic benchmarks would be “very
effective” way to improve parent
involvement
51%: BA or higher
53%: High school diploma or less
Possible Strategies to Improve Parental
Involvement
•
Insure that scheduled meetings include information about benchmarks
•
Make key information available at other school events—sports, plays, etc.
•
Focus on the need for families to stay involved in later grades
•
Find ways to increase communication between teachers and parents—the most
trusted and important contact point
•
Find ways to adapt to schedules of working parents
•
Focus more on non-academic areas—student motivation, teaching persistence,
responsibility
•
More research, more innovation
Want to Learn More?
For complete survey results, visit Public Agenda online:
www.publicagenda.org/pages/engaging_parents
Join the discussion on Facebook and Twitter (@PublicAgenda)
Also see Public Agenda’s related studies:
Are We Beginning to See the Light? Five key trends in public opinion on science,
technology, engineering and math education in public schools (2010)
What's Trust Got to Do With It? A Communications and Engagement Guide for
School Leaders Tackling the Problem of Persistently Failing Schools (2011)
A Time to Learn, A Time to Grow: California Parents Talk About Summertime and
Summer Programs (2010)