Parental satisfaction in the quality of education, school mental health services and college preparedness efforts is higher in Connecticut compared to the national average, according to a recent survey produced by 50CAN, a nationwide education advocacy organization and EDGE Research.
The results of the survey, as seen through a review of the raw data, are in stark contrast to the portrayal of the data in a report released this week by ConnCAN, the Connecticut-based branch of 50CAN. That report, which The Connecticut Mirror reported on earlier this week, based its analysis on the “percentage choosing the highest option.”
ConnCAN therefore emphasized that only 43% of Connecticut parents were “very satisfied” with the quality of their child’s school and incorrectly concluded in its report that “our parents track with the national average on low school satisfaction.”
ConnCAN also reported low numbers for the percentage of parents who were “very satisfied with how the school supports their child’s mental health needs” (37%) and the percentage of parents who responded with extreme confidence in college and workforce preparation (34%).
A look at the raw data, however, shows that nearly 88% of Connecticut respondents reported being “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with the quality of their child’s school, compared to 85% nationally. And roughly 78% reported being very or somewhat satisfied with how their child’s school supports their emotional and mental health needs, compared to 74% nationally.
Connecticut parents also reported high confidence in how schools are preparing students for college and the workforce, with over 70% reporting that they feel extremely or very confident in college preparedness efforts or the workforce. More than 20% reported feeling somewhat confident.
The survey, conducted this summer with the participation of over 400 parents across the state and more than 20,000 parents across the country, focused on five pillars: school quality and opportunity; out-of-school activities; information and engagement; college and career readiness; and tutoring, summer and mental health.
Steven Hernández, the executive director of ConnCAN, said his organization didn’t provide a full picture of the survey results and accentuated the negative in its report because with less than half of parents expressing “very” or “extreme confidence” in those measures it shows that “they are uncertain about their own children’s futures.”
“The story here is less about whether parents are satisfied or very satisfied, but more about what that satisfaction actually means in the results and outcomes we’re actually seeing with kids,” Hernández said. “Unless we’re very satisfied, we’re looking at the differentiation between satisfaction and actual results.”
Hernández added that he felt it was “really troubling that there is satisfaction,” and that was what the local report was meant to portray.
“The last thing we want is for it to be misleading. … What I took away from it, and looking at the raw data and at the data in general, was that there is satisfaction, and that’s really troubling for us – at least for those of us who are based here in Connecticut – it’s troubling because we know the history of the opportunity and the achievement gap,” Hernández said. “What [families are] satisfied with doesn’t match the outcomes that their children are experiencing – [especially] for children of color and for children who are living in poverty.”
When asked why student outcomes, or state data about student performance wasn’t included in the report in correlation to parental satisfaction, Hernández said he “wasn’t sure why it was reported that way.”
“Parents are telling us that they are uncertain about their own children’s futures,” said Hernández.. “It’s not unique to Connecticut, but I think we have really been unable to move the needle when it comes to the opportunity gaps in the state, and we see that in our education outcomes.”
In August, the state Department of Education released its annual assessment data, which showed that Connecticut students’ math and science scores improved last year and the number of students labeled chronically absent continued to drop from a pandemic high.
Scores still remained below pre-pandemic levels and the results showed smaller gains for high-need students, including those who are classified with a disability, qualify for free or reduced lunch or are multilingual learners.
ConnCAN’s report also drew concerns about parental engagement, stating that just over 1 in 4 Connecticut respondents said they had attended some type of parent organization meeting and less than 20% said they were “very familiar” with how budget decisions were made at their child’s school.
Last week, Hernández told the CT Mirror that the results pointed to disengaged families and said it was “an engagement problem in the very institutions that should be bringing in parents more intentionally and saying, ‘Here’s how we can work together on your children’s educational outcomes. Here’s what you can do at home. Here’s how we can partner over the summer.’”
“If parents felt that their schools wanted them to be part of their kids’ educational success, parents would be more engaged,” Hernández said.
Fran Rabinowitz, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents and a former superintendent in Bridgeport and Hamden, said she’s noticed that districts have begun investing more heavily in communication methods, but there’s “a lot more work to do in our schools to reach out to families, especially to low-income families.”
Parents want to be engaged, Rabinowitz said, adding that the work can begin with making long and complicated documents, like a school budget, more digestible.
“Budgets are your roadmap for what you believe are priorities in your school,” Rabinowitz said. “I remember being in Bridgeport and saying ‘There’s one thing I want to be sure of — the parents may not need to have the 500-page document that gives every line item, but they need to really understand that budget on a macro level.’ I remember traveling to different parts of the city with a PowerPoint.”
According to the survey, despite only 17% of Connecticut families saying they were “very familiar” with the budget process, 45% also responded they were “somewhat familiar,” with it, according to the data. The data also showed that over 50% of respondents said they received communication from the school or district about local education issues and opportunities, 41% they received information from their child’s teacher and 26% had engaged in a parent group like a PTA.
Districts experiencing staffing and resource challenges can better engage families by beginning those conversations in early childhood, Hernández said.
“Start early with families. Build a culture of parent engagement that is actually modeled by the school itself and parents will follow,” Hernández said. “Parents will follow the educational career because parents want more than anything for their children to be more successful than they were.”
Despite a low percentage of children in tutoring programs, at 19% both statewide and nationally, other extracurricular programs are working to engage students, with a higher percentage of students in Connecticut attending an after-school program (30%), summer program (51%) or participating in organized sports (65%) or arts (54%) programs compared to the national average.
Across the country just about 26% of respondents said their child was enrolled in an after-school program, 41% in a summer program, 58% in sports and 51% in the arts.
Growing these extracurricular opportunities is also a chance to continue developing stronger mental health support at schools, Rabinowitz said.
“I do believe any activity — after school, summer school — where kids are interacting with each other — sports — where they have that interaction, that team, feeling that they are not isolated or alone, I think is incredibly important,” she said.
This story was originally published in the Connecticut Mirror Oct. 15, 2024.
Editor’s Note: This story has been significantly revised because the Connecticut Mirror discovered a problem with the way ConnCAN reported the results of the survey, most significantly its omission of data that showed a more complete picture of parental satisfaction in schools, mental health support systems and college preparation efforts. The raw data on which the report was based, which the CT Mirror obtained after it published the original version of this story, tells a different story, which was reported in the revised story posted above.
