Jessica Grose On Parenting
"Who’s Unhappy With Schools? The Answer Surprised Me.
Tucked into a New Yorker article by Jill Lepore about the spate of school board fights over just about everything was a statistic that caught my eye. Despite all the ink spilled lately about clashes over masking, critical race theory and which books to assign (or ban), American parents are happy overall with their children’s education. Lepore explains:
In “Making Up Our Mind: What School Choice Is Really About,” the education scholars Sigal R. Ben-Porath and Michael C. Johanek point out that about nine in 10 children in the United States attend public school, and the overwhelming majority of parents — about eight in 10 — are happy with their kids’ schools.
Though I am quite happy with my children’s public school, am surrounded by parents who are mostly happy with their kids’ public schools and, when I was a kid, attended a public school that my parents were basically happy with, I was still surprised the number was that high.
I would have thought that the latest numbers about parental satisfaction might be lower because of all the pandemic-related chaos. But according to Gallup, which has tracked school satisfaction annually since 1999, in 2021, “73 percent of parents of school-aged children say they are satisfied with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving.” More parents were satisfied in 2021 than they were in 2013 and 2002, when satisfaction dipped into the 60s, and in 2019, we were at a high point in satisfaction — 82 percent — before the Covid pandemic dealt schools a major blow.
Digging deeper into the Gallup numbers revealed that the people who seem to be driving the negative feelings toward American schools do not have children attending them: Overall, only 46 percent of Americans are satisfied with schools. Democrats, “women, older adults and lower-income Americans are more likely than their counterparts to say they are satisfied with K-12 education,” Gallup found. My hypothesis is that it’s a bit like the adage about Congress: People tend to like their own representatives (that’s why they keep sending them back year after year) but tend to have a dim view of Congress overall.
Polling done by the Charles Butt Foundation shows a similar dynamic playing out in Texas, a state where book bans have been well publicized and an anti-critical race theory bill was signed into law in December. The third annual poll, which was of 1,154 Texas adults, found:
The share of public school parents giving their local public schools an A or B grade is up 12 percentage points in two years to 68 percent in the latest statewide survey on public education by the Charles Butt Foundation. In contrast with the increase among parents, there’s a decline in school ratings among those without a child currently enrolled in K-12 schools. Forty-eight percent of nonparents now give their local public schools A’s and B's, versus 56 percent a year ago.
This isn’t to say that our education system, broadly speaking, is humming along perfectly. There are so many ways it can improve, particularly in serving students in schools with higher poverty rates and those with physical disabilities and learning differences. But it does mean that we should take stories with a grain of salt when they present the American education system as a fact-free zone, no longer focused on teaching the basics, that parents are or should be fleeing from in any significant or sustained way.
As the Gallup polling also showed, home-schooling is back to its prepandemic rate of 4 percent, and data from the National Center for Education Statistics found that by far the steepest drops in public school enrollment during the 2020-21 school year were among children in pre-K or kindergarten. These kids likely will not be away from public schools permanently; their start was merely delayed.
It should also make us a bit more reflective about election results that are framed as a result of displeasure with schools. TargetSmart, which bills itself as a Democratic political data and data services firm, analyzed records showing who voted in Virginia’s 2021 gubernatorial election, which has been touted as a win for the Republican, Glenn Youngkin, that was based on unhappiness over the way the previously Democratic-led state handled the pandemic in schools.
TargetSmart found:
Turnout among voters age 75 or older increased by 59 percent, relative to 2017, while turnout among voters under age 30 only increased by just 18 percent. Notably, turnout of all other age groups combined (18-74), which would likely include parents of school-aged children, only increased by 9 percent compared to 2017 … This “silver surge” is an untold story that fundamentally undermines the conventional wisdom that Covid-19 protocols in schools and fears about critical race theory in curriculum determined the outcome of the election.
All of this at least raises the question of whether some of the people driving the outrage, even animus, against schools might not have much skin in the game and might not have any recent experience with teachers or curriculum. As we head into the midterms, at the very least we should resist easy conclusions about who is angry about what’s happening in our public schools and whether it has anything to do with the reality of what’s going on day to day for millions of children and their families.
Teachers, please tell us about your pandemic experience
Tiny Victories
Parenting can be a grind. Let’s celebrate the tiny victories.
My autistic 3-year-old grabbed my hand, led me to her bubble maker and left me there while she went to get her communication cue card. She placed my hand on the bubble machine and pointed to the word “want.” I hugged the breath out of her before I went in my closet and cried tears of joy.
— Danielle Jernigan, Indiana"
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