Charter School Parents Satisfied with Children's Education | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Kari Travis, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

Satisfaction of charter-school parents was greater than that of traditional-school parents; parents sending children to private schools most satisfied of all

    RALEIGH     Public charter school parents are more satisfied with their children's education than are traditional public district-school parents, according to two new studies from Education Next, a journal from Stanford University and the Harvard Kennedy School.

    Private school parents outrank both other categories as the most satisfied of all test groups, the studies also showed.

    "Although parental perceptions cannot necessarily be interpreted as identifying in-school realities, they do suggest that parental demand for charters and private schools is likely to grow," said Martin R. West, editor-in-chief of Education Next.

    The studies examined two separate polls. The first conducted by Education Next canvassed a national sample of 1,519 parents with K-12 children. The second study was headed by the U.S. Department of Education, and surveyed more than 17,000 households nationwide with children in public charter, private, assigned district, and chosen district schools.

    Key findings from the Education Next survey:

• Public charter parents are on average 13 percent more satisfied than are traditional public school parents. Private-school parents are on average 12 percentage points more satisfied than charter parents.
• Traditional public school parents are more likely than are private-school parents to say that problems at their school are either serious or very serious; public charter parents fall in the middle.
• Drugs, vandalism, fighting, and absences are 8 percent more likely to be reported as problems by traditional public school parents, as compared to public charter parents.
• Public charter parents report more extensive communications with school staff than do either traditional public-or-private-school parents. Charter parents are 14 percent more likely than traditional public school parents to communicate with teachers and administrators about their children's classwork or homework.

    Key findings from the U.S. Department of Education survey:

• Private school parents are more satisfied than those parents with children enrolled in public charter and traditional public schools.
• In all surveyed school sectors, high-income parents are more satisfied with their children's education than low-income parents.
• Black, white, and Hispanic parents are more satisfied with private schools than with public charter and traditional public schools, while Asian parents are not.

    Click here to read more about the results of the Education Next survey, or follow this link to see more statistics from the U.S. Department of Education's poll.