Education Polling

Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19Course ChoiceCustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedHomeschoolingMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

I’m all in!

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

The advisory firm Tyton Partners has released the second installment of its “school disrupted” study, which takes a deeper look at the drivers and barriers parents experienced when making educational decisions for their children in the face of COVID-19 challenges, as well as how their experiences will continue to shape the way they approach their children’s education after the pandemic subsides.

Part 2 of the study includes estimated enrollment by school sector for this fall. Among families who have made decisions for their children, approximately 72% chose a district school, with 28% choosing something different. If the 5.9 million families who are still undecided break in similar fashion, district enrollment could dip to levels not experienced in this millennium.

The survey also measured parental satisfaction by school sector from the previous school year. Satisfaction with supplemental pods, in which students remain enrolled in the distance learning program of a school but gather in groups with adult guidance, posted at 78%, tied with private school satisfaction. Parents whose students participated in pods full time followed with 72% satisfaction. Satisfaction with charter and traditional public schools was least favorable, at 61% and 60%, respectively.

Additionally, the survey queried families who were unaware of learning pods and micro-schools on their potential interest. A majority across all income levels expressed interest in utilizing pods and micro-schools for either supplemental or full-time attendance.

The study is well worth reading in full. The results show robust growth in alternative schooling and home-schooling during the pandemic among those who have participated as well as from those who did not. It also shows a great deal of dissatisfaction with traditional schooling.

Put all this together with a baby-bust that began in the Great Recession period and I’m willing to go all in on the following bet: Peak district school attendance lies at some point in the past for anyone old enough to read this post.

Ironically, it was the very groups that accused their opponents of attempting to “destroy public education” that have inflicted this exodus upon the system they claim to support.

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Demographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation EquityEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParental ChoicePrivate School ScholarshipsSchool Choice

Louisiana families strongly support state scholarship program

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

St. Michael the Archangel High School in Baton Rouge is one of 128 private schools that participate in the Louisiana Scholarship Program. The program enrolled 6,141 students in 2020-21.

A new poll from the state of Louisiana’s voice for educational choice has found widespread support among families who participate in the Louisiana Scholarship Program.

Nearly 93% of families who utilize the program to provide their children with additional opportunities to attend the school of their choice say they are happy with their children’s academic progress. Ninety-one percent say they are satisfied or very satisfied with their child’s current scholarship school, and nearly all – 97.8% – say their child feels safe in his or her scholarship school.

Additionally, 54.8% are pleased with how their scholarship school handled the COVID-19 crisis.

The Louisiana Federation for Children conducted the survey from March 18-March 31 to evaluate the level of parental satisfaction with the scholarship program formerly known as the Student Scholarships for Educational Excellence Program.

“Facing extreme obstacles, Louisiana Scholarship Program schools created safe learning environments for parents who prioritized in-person learning,” said Ann Duplessis, Louisiana Federation for Children President and American Federation for Children Board Member. “At the same time, families who preferred a virtual education for their children were accommodated.”

The Louisiana Department of Education reported 6,141 students were enrolled in the Louisiana Scholarship Program during the 2020-21 school year. Every child in the program, which was enacted in 2008 by a bipartisan group of legislators, comes from a low-income family, and 85% of students in the program are minority students.

Louisiana lawmakers recently expanded school choice options with the approval of HB 85, which established a statewide reading scholarship program named for the late state Rep. Steve Carter, a former Louisiana House education chairman who died in January from COVID-19 complications.

The program, approved on a unanimous bipartisan vote, was modeled after a similar one in Florida. You can read more here.

To view complete poll results, click here.

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Coronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

New poll shows support for education choice continues to soar nationwide

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A poll of more than 1,762 registered voters conducted earlier this month by RealClear Opinion Research shows that nearly three-quarters support school choice, with 16% opposed and 10% unsure.

The findings were consistent across party lines, with 83% of Republicans, 69% of Independents, and 70% of Democrats saying they strongly or somewhat support school choice.

Additionally, 66% of respondents said some or all the COVID funds the federal government set aside for K-12 education should be directed by parents. Most voters in both parties agreed parents should direct all or some of the funding.

The results represent a marked increase in support for school choice since similar polling was conducted in April 2020, with overall support increasing 10 percentage points. Support among public school parents has increased from 68 to 80%, while Democrat support has increased 59% to 70%.

American Federation for Children CEO observed that with public support for school choice at an all-time high, “a new story is unfolding” as the nation recovers from unprecedented nationwide school closures due to COVID-19.

“Parents are rising up and demanding the freedom to choose the best educational environment for their children,” Schultz said. “Thankfully, more and more lawmakers are listening. Already in 2021, 17 states have passed legislation to improve, expand, or create new school choice programs.”

Another nationwide poll  conducted prior to the RealClear Opinion Research poll revealed similar results.

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Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Poll confirms widespread support for school, parental choice

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

New research from a national polling organization shows 65% of more than 1,100 registered voters surveyed support school choice while 16% are unsure. The results are true across party lines, with 75% of Republicans, 61% of Democrats, and 60% of Independents saying they strongly or somewhat support school choice.

Meanwhile, 55% of voters polled say that some or all of the funds the federal government set aside for K-12 education should be directed by parents, with 21% saying that none of the funds should be directed by parents and 24% unsure.

Regarding school choice, the poll asked: School choice gives parents the right to use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs. Generally speaking, would you say you support or oppose the concept of school choice?

Support was strongest among Black voters, with 69% answering affirmatively, followed closely by Asian voters (68%); Hispanic voters (67%) and white voters (64%).

On the second question, the poll asked: The federal government allocated $190 billion towards K-12 education from stimulus packages since March 2020, which would essentially be $3,400 for every K-12 student in the country. How much of that funding should be directed by parents?

Here, support was strongest among Black voters, with 66% in favor, followed by Hispanic voters (58%); Asian voters (55%); and white voters (52%).

American Federation For Children president and CEO Tommy Schultz observed that while the pandemic underscored the need for additional school options, public support for school choice is nothing new.

“This year already, at least a dozen states have enacted new school choice programs or expanded existing programs because they’re recognizing just how popular this issue is amongst K-12 families,” Schultz said. “We are grateful that lawmakers are listening to the needs of families, but millions of children are still waiting for better options. We will continue fighting for those kids and to empower parents with the funds meant to deliver a high-quality education.”

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AnalysisDemographic ResearchEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation PollingEducation ResearchFeaturedGardiner ScholarshipMcKay ScholarshipParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceSpecial Needs Education

New report sheds light on perspective of Florida families participating in Gardiner, McKay scholarship programs

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

Editor’s note: Materials related to the study are posted to a landing page accessible at https://ceresinstitute.org/choices-and-challenges/.

Nearly all Florida parents participating in two state scholarship programs for children with special needs are somewhat or very satisfied with their child’s educational experience according to a new study released today from researchers at Boston University.

The study from the Community-Engaged Research and Evaluation Sciences Institute for Children and Youth at the university’s Wheelock College of Education & Human Development reveals that more than 90% of families whose children receive the Gardiner Scholarship and the McKay Scholarship for Students with Disabilities cite transformative changes and benefits they perceive for themselves and their children.

Additionally, findings reveal, participating parents overwhelmingly recommend that the scholarship programs continue with modifications that would reduce barriers to accessing or fully benefiting from the scholarships.

The institute worked in partnership with the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas to answer two questions:

How do families who receive Gardiner and McKay scholarships navigate school choice and supplemental supports for their children?

How satisfied are parents with the scholarship schools they have chosen and the supports their children have received?

The mixed-methods research study, which entailed interviews with nearly 100 parents and included more than 4,000 survey responses, was conducted between fall 2020 and spring 2021.

Nine specific areas of parent satisfaction were measured, including academic expectations of the school, order and discipline at the school, and the way school staff interact with parents. For all measures, and for both scholarship programs, parent satisfaction was between 87% and 94%.

Based on the findings, the report’s authors recommend five considerations for statewide action to ensure that the existing scholarship programs are more widely accessible and more definitively equitable:

·       Provide user-friendly, robust resources that equip parents to make informed choices, making the process for selecting and enrolling in a scholarship school simpler and more transparent

·       Focus on creating more equitable access to information and services, addressing inequities in access to information as well as gaps between the cost of services and the amount of scholarship support

·       Examine transitions between school levels, especially to and from middle school

·       Continue to focus on improving accountability

·       Give all parents of eligible students a real voice in the policies and practices that govern the scholarships

The authors note the Florida Legislature’s commitment this year of an additional $200 million to the state’s school choice program to expand eligibility and to merge the McKay and Gardiner programs into the Family Empowerment Scholarship Program effective July 1.

 As that date approaches, the authors state, their report demonstrates the urgent need to provide eligible families with easy-to-access, consistent, high-quality information as well as a “supporting ecosystem” of other parents, educators, school leaders and scholarship-granting organizations to help families make the best choices for their children. 

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AnalysisCatholic SchoolsCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation PollingFeaturedPrivate SchoolsSchool Choice

COVID-19 pandemic shutters more than 100 private schools

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

This is the website image that greets families of Saint Francis Academy in Bally, Pennsylvania, with the closure of the 277-year-old school.

A new report from the Cato Institute finds that no fewer than 132 private schools have announced permanent closure over the past year, at least partially due to economic effects of the pandemic. Additional findings indicate private school enrollment has dropped as much as 5% overall.

Cato’s COVID-19 Permanent Private School Closures tracker shows closures struck hardest at the beginning of the pandemic and climbed steadily each month from April through July, when closures peaked at 35. The hardest hit sector appears to be schools that are disproportionately low-cost.

The data show the pandemic impacted schools as young as five years old but also claimed 277-year-old Saint Francis Academy in Bally, Pennsylvania, which was founded in 1743. Only the school’s early-education program remains.

Of shuttered schools, most were Roman Catholic (84%), and most were in the Northeast (66%).

The average tuition at the closed private schools was just $7,066, less than half the cost of the average per pupil spending in American public schools ($14,891). Closed private school tuition was also significantly cheaper than the national average private school tuition of $11,173.

Income data for families sending students to these private school was not available, but Cato used Census data as a proxy. 

According to Cato, the median household income for families living near pandemic closed private schools was $89,953, close to the overall national median household income of $88,149.

Private schools that closed were more likely to serve Black or Hispanic students than private schools that remained open throughout the pandemic.

Also noteworthy: 111 of the 132 closed schools already had experienced financial difficulty prior to the pandemic.

Despite the uneven financial playing field between tuition-charging private schools and “free” public schools, private school closures have been lower than expected. Government aid may have been one reason why.

According to Cato, the Paycheck Protection Program made an estimated $4.5 billion in forgivable loans available to private schools. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act provided an estimated $715 million in “equitable services” provided by local school districts paid for by federal grants.

The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will provide another $2.75 billion each in aid to non-public schools. Both programs give priority funding to private schools serving low-income students.

The total aid to private schools will amount to about $2,500 per pupil. Despite this aid, public schools’ financial advantage has grown even larger. According to Cato, public schools will receive an estimated $3,900 per pupil, 56% more than what private schools will receive.

The aid, however, helped private schools remain open for in-person learning, something the Cato report believes reduced the expected enrollment losses as parents shopped for learning options.

The report concludes by celebrating the rise in voucher, tax credit and education savings account legislation, “which would move states closer to a level playing field.”

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CustomizationDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParent VoicesParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Customize learning for each child, parent poll says

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

The ethnically, racially and political diverse National Parents Union, brainchild of two Latina mothers, represents 100 organizations in 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.

A new poll from a national grassroots education choice group indicates strong support among parents for schools to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to education after a year of unprecedented disruption due to COVID-19.

Eighty-six percent of respondents to a survey launched by the National Parents Union agreed that schools should provide individualized learning plans for each student based on his or her specific needs.

The poll also found that parents want options for their child’s learning both this year and next year, with 58% saying they want the opportunity to choose between in-person and remote learning options for the remainder of the 2020-21 school year. Nearly as many – 56% – said they want that option for the next school year.

With release of the survey results, National Parents Union co-founder and president Keri Rodrigues underscored the organization’s mission to amplify the voices of individual parent groups and to push for changes in education nationwide.

“Throughout the pandemic, parents have been entrepreneurial in their approach to ensuring their children are educated, and it is long past due that schools begin reimagining their approach to education as well,” Rodrigues said. “However, the only way that will work, and the only way to move forward, is for parents to have a seat at the table, and not just any seat, but the seat at the head of the table.

More than three-quarters of survey participants expressed the desire for schools to provide more summer school programs in 2021 to counteract learning loss due to the pandemic. Interest also was high for after-school tutoring programs.

Opinions regarding the continuation of statewide testing were divided. Fifty-one percent of parents said testing should continue while 40% said there should be a break from statewide testing this year. Fifty-eight percent of parents said they will have their child take state tests if they are administered in their school.

The survey was conducted March 11-23 and included 1,029 parents of children in K-12 public schools.

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Commentary and OpinionCoronavirus / COVID-19CustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedHomeschoolingParental ChoiceSchool Choice

U.S. Census Bureau survey finds surge in homeschooling

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

“It wouldn’t surprise me if, five to 10 years from now, everyone looks at this and thinks, ‘That grew a whole lot faster than I thought it could. There is a slice of the market that is not being served by public education. They’re saying, ‘The public schools don’t work, [and] I can’t get into the charter schools.’”

— Andy Calkins, deputy director of Next Generation Learning Challenges, in an Education Next article on micro-schools, 2017

Homeschooling began as a counter-cultural practice on the anti-establishment left, was then adopted by conservatives, and in recent years has become a more mainstream practice including about 3.3% of American students.

The U.S. Census Bureau earlier today released the results of a parent survey about homeschooling that asked parents to distinguish between distance learning while enrolled in a school and actual homeschooling. Results indicate a very large increase in reported homeschooling – a rise from 5.4% in spring 2020 to 11.1% in fall 2020.

Here is the breakdown in homeschooling by state.

So, a few things to note.

Despite the fact that the Census Bureau asked respondents to distinguish between distance learning and homeschooling, it seems entirely possible that more than a few respondents confused such distinctions. If 13% of students in my home state of Arizona are homeschooling, only a few of them have complied with a legal requirement to register with their county superintendent.

The distinctions between participating in a pandemic pod that has enrolled students through a public distance learning program and homeschooling may have eluded some respondents. Or perhaps “homeschooling” is a popular response for people who have decided to delay kindergarten enrollment. Or perhaps Arizonans get even less mindful than usual about regulations during a pandemic.

These numbers deserve more investigation, but the Census Bureau may have provided a partial explanation for the thousands of students who have “gone missing” during the pandemic.

With those caveats in mind, well, wow.

The 16.1% figure for Black students in particular is striking. Out in the bubbling primordial soup of pre-pandemic homeschooling innovators combined a DIY ethos with experiments with co-operative education. Upper-middle class American parents spent decades spending an increasing amount on enrichment activities for students.

Silicon Valley families discovered that education was way cooler if you combined homeschool co-ops with more enrichment education. A growing number of Valley residents discovered the educational opportunity cost of having a child in a school modeled after a 19th century factory to be far too high for the cool kids.

When the pandemic struck, a quick rebrand of homeschool co-op into “pandemic pods” went viral. COVID-19 accelerated a number of pre-existing trends and homeschooling appears to be one of them.

What happens next? No one can be sure.

The structural problems of American public schooling have not gone anywhere. The nation’s fiscal time bomb has been ticking away during the pandemic. Almost all Americans have experimented with new forms of education. Pathways for disadvantaged students to participate in this form of learning would be a most welcome development.

Apparently, a large percentage of Americans have decided that if you want education done right, you do it yourself.

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