What Do Parents Think of Their Children's Schools? "EdNext" Poll Compares Charter, District, and Private Schools Nationwide

Autor/inn/en	West, Martin R.; Peterson, Paul E.; Barrows, Samuel
Titel	What Do Parents Think of Their Children's Schools? "EdNext" Poll Compares Charter, District, and Private Schools Nationwide
Quelle	In: Education Next, 17 (2017) 2, S.8-18 (11 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1539-9664
Schlagwörter	Private Schools; Charter Schools; Public Schools; Comparative Analysis; Parent Attitudes; Public Opinion; National Surveys; Participant Satisfaction; Barriers; Behavior Problems; Parent School Relationship; School Effectiveness; Parent Aspiration + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Private school; Privatschule; Charter school; Charter-Schule; Public school; Öffentliche Schule; Elternverhalten; Öffentliche Meinung; Parent-school relationship; Parent school relationships; Parent-school relationships; Parent-school relation; Parent school relation; Eltern-Schule-Beziehung; Schuleffizienz; Elternwille
Abstract	Over the past 25 years, charter schools have offered an increasing number of families an alternative to their local district schools. The charter option has proven particularly popular in large cities, but charter-school growth is often constrained by state laws that limit the number of students the sector can serve. The charter sector is the most rapidly growing segment of the education marketplace. Despite this rapid growth in the charter sector, little is known about the views of parents who are making use of these schools. Are charter-school parents more--or less--satisfied than parents in the district and private sectors with teacher quality, student discipline, and other characteristics of their children's schools? Do they perceive more misbehavior there, or less? Are communications between parents and schools more or less extensive? And to what extent do parents' perceptions of these issues vary "within" each sector? To examine parental perceptions of charter, district, and private schools, a survey was administered in 2016 by the polling firm Knowledge Networks (KN) to nationally representative samples of parents with children enrolled in each of these sectors. The findings of this study reveal that charter parents are more satisfied with important aspects of their schools--such as teacher quality, school discipline, and character instruction--than are district-school parents, but they are less satisfied than private-school parents. Charter parents are also less likely to perceive serious problems in their children's schools than are district-school parents. Charter parents report more extensive communications with their children's schools than parents in the other two sectors, but they also express greater concern about a paucity of extracurricular activities. [For the companion study, "How Satisfied are Parents with Their Children's Schools?" (Cheng and Peterson 2017), see EJ1137683.] (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Hoover Institution. Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-6010. Tel: 800-935-2882; Fax: 650-723-8626; e-mail: educationnext@hoover.stanford.edu; Web site: http://educationnext.org/journal/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2020/1/01