Learning Got Complicated

But parents’ view of the schools is not

By Cheryl Russell

Fifty-three million children are enrolled in the nation’s schools, from kindergarten through the twelvth grade. Thirty-one million families have at least one child in kindergarten, elementary, middle, or high school. Nearly seven million teachers and administrators work in those schools. Education is an enormous industry in the United States and one that has been severely disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic.

But don’t mistake disruption for dissatisfaction. It may be hard to fathom in these divisive times, but parents are the biggest boosters of their child’s school. According to surveys, parents aren’t just satisfied with their child’s school. The majority (64 percent) are very satisfied, according to the National Center for Education Statistics’ Parent and Family Involvement in Education survey (Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019).

Most parents are very satisfied with their child’s school regardless of whether it is public or private. They are very satisfied no matter whether their child is in kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, or high school. They are very satisfied with large schools and small schools. They are very satisfied whether the school is in a city, a suburb, or a rural area. And that’s not all. Most parents are also very satisfied with their child’s teachers, very satisfied with the school’s academic standards, and very satisfied with the way the school communicates with them.

The National Center for Education Statistics fielded this latest survey of parent satisfaction during the 2018-19 school year, before the coronavirus pandemic brought in-person learning to a halt in the spring of 2020. The shutdown affected schoolchildren everywhere. Literally everywhere. A nearly universal 99 percent of parents with children in grades K-12 in spring 2020 reported that their child’s classes were taught in a distance learning format or changed in some other way due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey. Everyone had to cope with coronavirus.

So, has the coronavirus knocked schools down a notch in the opinion of the nation’s parents? No, it has not. Despite all the turmoil of the past few months, parents remain staunch supporters of their child’s school, as revealed by a Washington Post-Schar School poll of parents. When asked how their child’s school handled education during the coronavirus outbreak in the spring, 79 percent of parents say good or excellent. Yes, parents are frustrated with distance learning, but fear of coronavirus far outweighs frustration. Sixty-six percent oppose requiring public schools to open for full-time, in-person classes. Sixty-three percent think it will be January 2021 or later until it is safe for children to go back to school. But when asked whether they are confident school officials can keep their children safe when they do go back to school, 65 percent of parents say yes.