IES Blog

Institute of Education Sciences

New Analysis Reveals Differences in Parents’ Satisfaction With Their Child’s School Across Racial/Ethnic Groups

The National Household Education Surveys (NHES) program collects nationally representative, descriptive data on the educational activities of children and families in the United States. Specifically, NHES’s Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI) survey collects data about how families of K–12 students connect to their child’s school. Parents are asked questions about their involvement in and satisfaction with their child’s school as well as school choice.

This blog expands on the PFI First Look report, and more analysis of race and ethnicity in education and early childhood is available in new web tables.

The results from 2019 PFI survey—which was administered before the coronavirus pandemic—show differences across racial/ethnic groups1 in parents’ satisfaction with their child’s school. Overall, White students tended to have parents who were “very satisfied” with their child’s schools, teachers, and academic standards at the highest rates. 

Satisfaction with schools

In 2019, about two-thirds (67 percent) of White students had parents who were “very satisfied” with their child’s school (figure 1). This percentage was higher than the percentages for Hispanic students (64 percent), Asian or Pacific Islander students (61 percent), Black students (59 percent), and “Other race” students2 (57 percent).

A higher percentage of Hispanic students had parents who were “very satisfied” with their child’s school (64 percent) than did Black students (59 percent) and “Other race” students (57 percent).


Figure 1. Percentage of students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade whose parent/guardian reported being "very satisfied" with the student’s school, by student’s race/ethnicity: 2019

\1\"Other race" includes non-Hispanic students of Two or more races and non-Hispanic students whose parents did not choose any race from the categories provided on the race item in the questionnaire.
NOTE: Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (PFI-NHES), 2019.


Satisfaction with teachers

Sixty-six percent of White students had parents who were “very satisfied” with their child’s teachers in 2019 (figure 2). This percentage was higher than the percentages for Hispanic students (62 percent), Black students (60 percent), “Other race” students (58 percent), and American Indian or Alaska Native students (49 percent). The percentage for Asian or Pacific Islander students was not measurably different from the percentages for any other racial/ethnic group.


Figure 2. Percentage of students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade whose parent/guardian reported being "very satisfied" with the student’s teachers, by student’s race/ethnicity: 2019

\1\"Other race" includes non-Hispanic students of Two or more races and non-Hispanic students whose parents did not choose any race from the categories provided on the race item in the questionnaire.
NOTE: Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (PFI-NHES), 2019.


Satisfaction with academic standards

In 2019, about 64 percent of White students had parents who were “very satisfied” with the academic standards of their child’s school (figure 3). This percentage was higher than the percentages for Black students and Hispanic students (60 percent each), Asian or Pacific Islander students (56 percent), and “Other race” students (55 percent). The percentage for American Indian or Alaska Native students was not measurably different from the percentages for any other racial/ethnic group.


Figure 3. Percentage of students enrolled in kindergarten through 12th grade whose parent/guardian reported being "very satisfied" with the academic standards of the student's school, by student’s race/ethnicity: 2019

\1\"Other race includes non-Hispanic students of Two or more races and non-Hispanic students whose parents did not choose any race from the categories provided on the race item in the questionnaire.
NOTE: Race categories exclude persons of Hispanic ethnicity.
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program (PFI-NHES), 2019.


Explore the NHES Table Library to find more data about differences in parents’ satisfaction with their child’s school.


[1] Race categories exclude students of Hispanic ethnicity, which are all included in the Hispanic category.
[2] "Other race" includes non-Hispanic students of Two or more races, and non-Hispanic students whose parents did not choose any race from the categories provided on the race item in the questionnaire..

 

By Rachel Hanson and Jiashan Cui, AIR

Online Training for the 2019 NHES Early Childhood Program Participation Survey Data and Parent and Family Involvement in Education Survey Data

The NCES National Household Education Survey (NHES) program administered two national surveys in 2019—the Early Childhood Program Participation (ECPP) survey and the Parent and Family Involvement in Education (PFI) survey. The ECPP survey collects information on young children’s care and education, including the use of home-based care with both relatives and nonrelatives and center-based care and education. The survey examines how well these care arrangements cover work hours, costs of care, location of care, the process of selecting care, and factors making it difficult to find care. The PFI survey collects information on a range of issues related to how families connect to schools, including information on family involvement with schools, school choice, homeschooling, virtual education, and homework practices.

NCES released data from the 2019 NHES administration on January 28, 2021. For each of the two surveys, this release includes the following:

  • Public-use data files, in ASCII, CSV, SAS, SPSS, Stata, and R
  • Restricted-use data files (in formats listed above and with codebook)
  • Public-Use Data File Codebook
  • Data File User’s Manual (for both public-use and restricted-use files)

That’s a lot of information! How should you use it? We suggest you start by viewing the NHES online data Distance Learning Dataset Training modules. The modules provide a high-level overview of the NHES program and the data it collects. They also include important considerations to ensure that your analysis takes into account the NHES’s complex sample design (such as applying weights and estimating standard errors).   

You should first view the five general NHES modules, which were developed for the 2012 NHES data. These modules are:

  • Introduction to the NHES
  • Getting Started with the NHES Data
  • Data Collected Through the NHES
  • NHES Sample Design, Weights, Variance, and Missing Data
  • Considerations for Analysis of NHES Data

A sixth module explains key changes in the 2019 ECPP and PFI surveys compared to their respective 2012 surveys:

  • Introduction to the 2019 NHES Data Collection

The sixth module also provides links to the 2019 ECPP and PFI data, restricted-use licensing information, and other helpful resources.

Now you are ready to go! If you have any questions, please contact us at NHES@ed.gov.

By Lisa Hudson, NCES

Building Bridges: Increasing the Power of the Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC) Through Data Linking With an ID Crosswalk

On October 15, 2020, the U.S. Department of Education’s (ED) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released the 2017–18 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC). The CRDC is a biennial survey that has been conducted by ED to collect data on key education and civil rights issues in our nation’s public schools since 1968. The CRDC provides data on student enrollment and educational programs and services, most of which are disaggregated by students’ race/ethnicity, sex, limited English proficiency designation, and disability status. The CRDC is an important aspect of the overall strategy of ED’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to administer and enforce civil rights statutes that apply to U.S. public schools. The information collected through the CRDC is also used by other ED offices as well as by policymakers and researchers outside of ED.  

As a standalone data collection, the CRDC provides a wealth of information. However, the analytic power and scope of the CRDC can be enhanced by linking it to other ED and government data collections, including the following:

A Crosswalk to Link CRDC Data to Other Data Collections

To facilitate joining CRDC data to these and other data collections, NCES developed an ID crosswalk. This crosswalk is necessary because there are instances when the CRDC school ID number (referred to as a combo key) does not match the NCES school ID number assigned in other data collections (see the “Mismatches Between ID Numbers” section below for reasons why this may occur). By linking the CRDC to other data collections, researchers can answer questions that CRDC data alone cannot, such as the following:



Mismatches Between ID Numbers

Mismatches between CRDC combo key numbers and NCES ID numbers may occur because of differences in how schools and districts are reported in the CRDC and other collections and because of differences in the timing of collections. Below are some examples.

  • Differences in how schools and school districts are reported in the CRDC and other data collections:
    • New York City Public Schools is reported as a single district in the CRDC but as multiple districts (with one supervisory union and 33 components of the supervisory union) in other data collections. Thus, the district will have one combo key in the CRDC but multiple ID numbers in other data collections.
    • Sometimes charter schools are reported differently in the CRDC compared with other data collections. For example, some charter schools in California are reported as independent (with each school serving as its own school district) in the CRDC but as a single combined school district in other data collections. Thus, each school will have its own combo key in the CRDC, but there will be one ID number for the combined district in other data collections.
    • There are differences between how a state or school district defines a school compared with how other data collections define a school.
  • Differences in the timing of the CRDC and other data collections:
    • There is a lag between when the CRDC survey universe is planned and when the data collection begins. During this time, a new school may open. Since the school has not yet been assigned an ID number, it is reported in the CRDC as a new school.


Interested in using the ID crosswalk to link CRDC data with other data collections and explore a research question of your own? Visit https://www.air.org/project/research-evaluation-support-civil-rights-data-collection-crdc to learn more and access the crosswalk. For more information about the CRDC, visit https://ocrdata.ed.gov/.

 

By Jennifer Sable, AIR, and Stephanie R. Miller, NCES

What Do Parents Look for When Choosing an Early Childhood Care Arrangement?

The short answer to this question is reliability. However, new 2019 data from the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) program indicate that parents typically consider many factors when choosing care arrangements for their young children.  

The Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019 survey found that 59 percent of children age 5 and under were in a care arrangement (including care from a relative other than a parent, care from a nonrelative, or attendance at a preschool or day care) in 2019. The parents of these children were asked how important various factors were when choosing their child’s care arrangement. The reliability of the arrangement was the factor most often rated as “very important”: 87 percent of children had parents who rated reliability as very important when choosing a care arrangement for their child (figure 1). This factor was followed by available times for care and qualifications of staff (75 and 72 percent, respectively). A majority of children’s parents also rated the following factors as very important:

  • Learning activities (68 percent)
  • Location (60 percent)
  • Time spent with other children (59 percent)
  • Cost (55 percent)

Figure 1. Among children age 5 and under who were not yet in kindergarten and were in at least one weekly care arrangement, percentage whose parents indicated that the factor was “very important” when choosing child’s care arrangement: 2019

SOURCE: Cui, J., and Natzke, L. (2020). Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019 (NCES 2020-075). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


For many factors, the percentage of children whose parents rated the factor as very important when choosing a care arrangement was similar across the children’s age ranges. However, for 5 of the 11 factors, ratings varied depending on the child’s age. For example, the percentage of children whose parents rated time spent with other children as very important increased with the age of the child (figure 2). Similarly, learning activities were rated as very important more often for children ages 3–5 (74 percent) than for younger children (59 percent for children under age 1; 64 percent for children ages 1–2).


Figure 2.  Among children age 5 and under who were not yet in kindergarten and were in at least one weekly care arrangement, percentage whose parents indicated that the factor was “very important” when choosing child’s care arrangement, by age of child: 2019

SOURCE: Cui, J., and Natzke, L. (2020). Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019 (NCES 2020-075). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


The opposite pattern was true for the number of children in group and website ratings. Both of these factors were rated as very important more often by parents of children under age 1 (51 and 35 percent, respectively) than by parents of children ages 3–5 (40 and 25 percent, respectively).

More detailed information about child care arrangements is available in Early Childhood Program Participation: 2019. For a look at why parents of K–12 students choose schools for their children, check out this blog post and the recent NCES release Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019.

 

By Lisa Hudson, NCES

Why Do Parents Choose Schools for Their Children?

Have you ever wondered why parents choose a specific school for their child? New data from the Parent and Family Involvement (PFI) Survey of the National Household Education Surveys (NHES) program allow us to identify the factors that parents of K–12 students rate as “very important” when choosing a school. In the 2018–19 school year, 36 percent of students had parents who indicated that they had considered multiple schools for their child. Among these students, 79 percent had parents who indicated that the quality of teachers, principals, or other school staff was very important (figure 1). Other factors that a majority of students’ parents indicated as being very important include safety (including student discipline) (71 percent) and curriculum focus or unique academic programs (e.g., language immersion, STEM focus) (59 percent).


Figure 1. Among K–12 students whose parents considered multiple schools, percentage whose parents indicated that selected factors were “very important” when choosing child’s school, by school type: 2018–19

SOURCE: Hanson, R., and Pugliese, C. (2020). Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019 (NCES 2020-076). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


Although parents of students attending different types of schools (i.e., public assigned schools, public chosen schools, private religious schools, or private nonreligious schools) rated most factors for choosing a school similarly, some differences were observed. For example, higher percentages of students in private nonreligious schools than of students in all other kinds of schools had parents who indicated that the following factors were very important when choosing a school:

  • Quality of teachers, principals, or other school staff (92 percent) (figure 1)
  • Curriculum focus or unique academic programs (74 percent) (figure 1)
  • Number of students in class (58 percent) (figure 2)

In addition, a higher percentage of students in private nonreligious schools (42 percent) than of students in public schools (30 percent for public assigned schools and 31 percent for public chosen schools) had parents who indicated that student body characteristics were very important when choosing a school (figure 2). Conversely, a lower percentage of students in private nonreligious schools (14 percent) than of students in any other school type (ranging from 22 to 29 percent) had parents who rated cost as very important.


Figure 2. Among K–12 students whose parents considered multiple schools, percentage whose parents indicated that selected factors were “very important” when choosing child’s school, by school type: 2018–19

SOURCE: Hanson, R., and Pugliese, C. (2020). Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019 (NCES 2020-076). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


Thirty percent of students in public assigned schools had parents who reported that they had considered other schools for their child. What did parents of students in public assigned schools value more than other parents (figure 3)?

  • Extracurricular options (including before- and after-school programs): 31 percent of parents of students in public assigned schools indicated that this factor was very important, compared with 25 percent in public chosen schools and 24 percent in private religious schools.
  • Special facilities (e.g., gymnasium, planetarium, library): 26 percent of parents of students in public assigned schools indicated that this factor was very important, compared with 20 percent in public chosen schools and 15 percent in private religious schools.
  • Quality or availability of special education (including services for students with disabilities): 25 percent of parents of students in public assigned schools indicated that this factor was very important, compared with 13 percent in private religious schools and 17 percent in private nonreligious schools.

Figure 3. Among K–12 students whose parents considered multiple schools, percentage whose parents indicated that selected factors were “very important” when choosing child’s school, by school type: 2018–19

SOURCE: Hanson, R., and Pugliese, C. (2020). Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019 (NCES 2020-076). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


On the other hand, a lower percentage of students in public assigned schools had parents who indicated that the quality of teachers, principals, or other school staff was very important (77 percent) than did students in any other type of school (82 percent of students in public chosen schools, 84 percent of students in private religious schools, and 92 percent of students in private nonreligious schools) (figure 1).

Only 38 percent of students in private religious schools had parents who indicated that the religious orientation of the school was very important when choosing a school (figure 4). Likewise, only a quarter of students overall had parents who indicated that convenience of location was very important when choosing a school.


Figure 4. Among K–12 students whose parents considered multiple schools, percentage whose parents indicated that selected factors were “very important” when choosing child’s school, by school type: 2018–19

SOURCE: Hanson, R., and Pugliese, C. (2020). Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019 (NCES 2020-076). U.S. Department of Education. Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics.


More details about the characteristics and factors that play a role in school choice, as well as additional statistics on family involvement in schools, are available in the recent NCES release Parent and Family Involvement in Education: 2019.

 

By Sarah Grady, NCES