1. What Do Parents Think of Their Children’s Schools
What Do Parents Think of Their Children’s Schools? EdNext Poll Compares Charter, District, and Private Schools Nationwide
Samuel Barrows, Paul E. Peterson, and Martin R. West
Program on Education Policy and Governance
Harvard University
December 13, 2016
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2. 2016 EdNext Parents Survey
Oversampled parents in the charter, district, and private school sectors as part of the nationally representative EdNext Survey conducted online by Knowledge Networks in May-June 2016
774 district-school parents
428 private-school parents
317 charter-school parents
Sample weights used to match parent oversample to known characteristics of population with school-age children
Together with companion study by Cheng and Peterson, provides the first nationally representative picture of parental perceptions across charter, district, and private sectors

3. College Graduates, High Income, Homeowners
Charter parents are less likely to be . . .
College Graduates, High Income, Homeowners

4. African American or Hispanic
Charter parents more likely to be …
African American or Hispanic

5. More charter parents live in. . .
Urban areas, West

6. Comparing Parental Perceptions
Satisfaction: 8 questions about aspects of school quality on a 5-point scale (very dissatisfiedvery satisfied)
Problems: 7 questions about potential problems in school on a 3-point scale (not seriousvery serious)
Communications: 6 questions about frequency of communications during past year on 4-point scale (none5 or more times)
We report raw responses but control for differences in parental background characteristics when testing the statistical significance of differences across sectors

7. Charter parents more satisfied than District parents, less satisfied than Private parents
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8. Smaller differences across sectors in satisfaction
with facilities, diversity, location
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9. Fewer Charter parents than District parents identify serious problems with social disruption in their child’s school
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10. Fewer Charter parents than District parents report problems with racial conflict and ability mixing, but many Charter parents see a lack of extracurriculars as a serious problem
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11. Charter parents report more frequent communication about some issues than District or Private parents
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12. Charter parents report more frequent communication about some issues than District or Private parents
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13. Summary
Charter parents are more satisfied with their schools than District parents, but less satisfied than Private parents
Fewer charter parents than district parents report serious problems with social disruption in their school, but more charter parents see a lack of extracurriculars as a concern
Communications with parents appear to be more extensive in the charter sector than in the district or private sector
Limitations:
Perceptions may not reflect reality
Can’t rule out possibility that differences reflect parent characteristics
Limited sample size prevents examination of differences in perceptions by subgroup