Parents Believe Schools Are Not Preparing Students for College and Careers

While three in four New York State parents believe high school graduates today should be ready for college, only 43 percent of parents believe that NY’s current high school graduates are in fact ready, according to a new statewide poll commissioned by The Education Trust–New York and conducted by Kiley & Company.

The poll memo can be found at this link.

When broken out by race: 38 percent of African American parents, 42 percent of Latino parents, and 44 percent of White parents agree that schools are preparing students for college. More than a quarter (27 percent) of all parents say current high school graduates are not ready for college, career, vocational school or a job.

Looking at how different groups of parents view their schools is important, as African American, Latino and lower-income families represent the majority of New York State’s public school students. However, along with other groups including English learners and students with disabilities, their children have been historically underserved—resulting in major opportunity and achievement gaps. These parents have too often been left out of the conversation about critical education policies.

To delve deeper into what parents have to say about the state of New York’s schools, the poll also found that the majority of parents from all racial groups support grading schools just as students are graded and evaluated, with support highest among African American and Latino parents (83 percent and 80 percent, respectively, compared to 60 percent for White parents).

Eighty-three percent of parents in households making under $50,000 agreed with grading schools in some fashion, compared to 73 percent of those in the $50,000-$150,000 bracket and 67 percent of those making over $150,000.

African American and Latino parents and lower-income parents were significantly more likely than White parents or wealthier parents, respectively, to say that the following are highly important for improving school performance:

• Expanding access to courses that prepare students for college, such as Advanced Placement (AP) courses and advanced math and science
• Identifying schools that are not meeting expectations so they can receive extra attention, support and resources
• Creating a school report card that gives parents clear information about how a school is doing in a variety of areas
• Requiring schools to improve the performance of all groups of students, including those from ethnic or racial minorities, in order to improve their overall rating

A substantial proportion of African-American parents (42 percent) believe public schools do a better job for students of other races than they do for African American students, according to another finding.

These views are particularly relevant as New York state works to finalize its plan to implement the new federal education law, ESSA, which gives states more flexibility on how they craft their education accountability measures. ESSA asks states to make crucial decisions about what it means to be a successful school, what rate of academic progress is acceptable, and what to do when schools are not meeting our expectations.

The poll, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points, asked parents about their thoughts on the current state of public schools, whether the state education system is working for their children and how they think it can be improved to work for all students. It polled public school parents by telephone from across New York State and was conducted in English from November 17-23 with a demographic selection that closely mirrors the current demographics of New York State public school students.

  More information about the coalition can be found at www.EquityInEdNY.org.