A recent Pew Research study found that by 2016, half of all Millennial women—those born between 1981 and 1996—were mothers. And as we in the education reform business keep working to make schools better for future generations, we should be paying attention to what this generation’s parents say about schools right now. That’s why the Walton Family Foundation and Echelon Insights, a Virginia-based data analytics firm, partnered to conduct a survey of what millennial parents think about schools and their children’s education.
To help determine what questions to ask a broad sample of these parents, researchers first conducted focus groups with millennial parents in three cities (Orlando, Minneapolis, and Richmond) to learn about their dreams for their kids and what they expect from their local schools. Armed with these insights, they wrote and administered a survey to 800 millennial parents, a nationally representative sample, with questions covering five themes: (1) How are schools doing? (2) What should schools be doing? (3) How can we measure how students are doing? (4) How can we measure how schools are doing? (5) How should we hold schools accountable? The results are broken down by demographic factors like race, gender, and yearly income.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the most influential factor driving parents’ ideas about education is income. In almost every category, vast differences emerged between parents making less than $30,000 per year and parents making more than $75,000 per year. Most notably, low-income families are much less likely to be satisfied with America’s schools (44 percent, compared to 81 percent of high-income parents). The results are similarly divided between different levels of educational attainment: only 49 percent of parents with a high school diploma or less believe kids are getting a good education, while 74 percent with a bachelor’s degree believe so.
What is “a good education”? There was little consensus among respondents. A plurality (38 percent) selected, “To prepare students for further learning, like college or trade school.” A close second (30 percent) was, “To prepare students for the workforce so they can succeed in a career and make a living.”
Parents were also asked to rate the importance of seventeen academic, social, and workforce skills. “Be able to get and keep a job” tops the list, with an average score of 8.54 out of 10. Right below that are, “Be able to handle their personal finances,” and, “Be able to read at a twelfth grade level.” However, social skills like self-confidence and goal-setting were ranked almost as highly, and parents say they rely on schools to teach those as well as academic skills. The report does not specify whether this view varies between demographic groups.
Millennial parents also use a variety of data points to measure how their students and schools are doing. A majority (56 percent) say they rely primarily on course grades to monitor their students’ proficiency in reading, and 40 percent rely on grades to monitor math proficiency. They also place significant weight on conversations with their child’s teachers. When asked what else they would like to know, parents expressed the need for more specific information about what their child struggles with in the classroom. When it comes to finding a good school, millennial parents most often rely on test scores (53 percent), school culture (42 percent), and extracurricular activities (40 percent).
The income divide shows up again here. Fewer than half of low-income parents believe they have useful information about their child’s progress; they would rather know about a school’s graduation rate. High-earning parents wanted to know how their child’s performance compared to district and state averages. They also cared more about elective and extracurricular offerings such as arts, music, and sports.
Feelings toward standardized tests were mixed. Thirty percent of parents use test scores as a primary indicator for their own student’s success, but 53 percent use test scores as the primary measure of school quality. And three-quarters of parents want assurance that a passing test score was a guarantee of college readiness and/or scholarship eligibility. (Our recent Grade Inflation study sheds some light on this sticky subject.)
The authors’ main takeaway is that millennial parents expect more from schools than have previous generations. There is a general consensus that while academics are still of primary importance in the classroom, students should also be learning practical and personal skills. The deep divide between high- and low-income families—what they think about their kids’ education and what they expect from their schools—also exposes the need for more research about how we can better communicate with young families of all backgrounds.
SOURCE: “Millennial Parents and Education,” Walton Family Foundation and Echelon Insights. November 2018.
