Dive Brief:
- A survey of parents in New York commissioned by The Education Trust found only 38% of black parents, 42% of Latino parents and 44% of white parents think schools are preparing students for college, and it identified differences by race and income level in thoughts about evaluating schools.
- According to survey results, more black and Latino parents supported grading schools than white parents (83%, 80% and 60%, respectively), with far more low-income parents than those making over $150,000 per year agreeing schools should be graded like students are.
- Black, Latino and low-income parents also were more likely than white and wealthy parents to say requiring schools to improve performance of all subgroups, creating a clear school report card, and identifying low-performing schools was important to improving school performance — and 42% of black parents believed public schools better serve students of other races.
Dive Insight:
State education officials around the nation should be talking to parents about redesigning school report cards and presenting information in a way that will be understandable and helpful to them. One requirement of the Every Student Succeeds Act is stakeholder engagement with parents. States and districts should not be surprised if parents from different racial and ethnic backgrounds have significantly different beliefs about improving schools, as the gaps in their respective students’ performance are still significant and their opinions likely follow.
High-quality stakeholder engagement is difficult. It is easy to hold a community meeting and call that engagement, but if the meeting is during the week, during normal working hours or not, many parents will not be able to attend. When educators go out of their way to engage their communities, however, school improvement plans can better reflect the community and student performance is sure to rise accordingly.
