Released: June 03, 2003
Making the Grade: What Parents Think of New York's Charter Schools
A new study of 300 parents of New York charter school students, conducted by Zogby International for the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, shows that nearly 80% of the parents give their children's charter school an "A" or "B" for quality of instruction.
This poll is the first attempt to accurately gauge the degree of parental satisfaction with charter schools in New York State. The report shows that parents in New York are extremely satisfied with the work the charters are doing in almost every aspect of schooling, according to Henry Olsen, Executive Director of the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute.
The study's main findings:
* Parents throughout New York State indicate high levels of satisfaction with their child's charter school. More than four in ten (42%) gave their school an "A" grade overall compared to only 21% who gave their child's prior school an "A."
* People are much more likely to give an overall grading of "C" through "F" to the school their child was enrolled in previously (41%) than to the current charter school (25%).
* Nearly eight in ten (79%) of respondents say their charter school deserves an "A" or "B" for its quality of instruction compared to only 52% for their child's previous school.
* Previously attended schools are much more likely to receive "C" through "F" grades for quality of instruction (39%) than the current charter school (20%).
* When judging the individual components of charter schools, 90% of parents were satisfied with the safety of the schools, 87% were satisfied with parent-teacher relationships, 86% with the amount and quality of homework and 85% with class size. More than eight in ten (84%) parents were satisfied with the schools academic quality, and 81% were satisfied with the discipline and communications from school personnel.
* More than three fourths (79%) of parents re-enrolled their children in the same charter school for the current school year. Those who didn't were usually those who did not have to or couldn't, because their child graduated or the family moved to another town for example.
* More than nine in every ten parents say there is no problem at their child's charter school with carrying guns on school property (94%), gang activity (93%), drug use (93%) or destruction of school property (91%).
* When asked what one thing their child's previous school did better than the charter school, by far the most common response (33% of parents) was "nothing." When asked what one thing the charter school did better than their child's previous school, the most common response (17%) was "better academics/education."
Charter schools-independently run public schools-are given greater autonomy in return for higher levels of accountability. This poll shows that charter school accountability leads to greater levels of satisfaction from parents of enrolled children.
In conducting this telephone survey, Zogby International polled 300 parents chosen at random from lists provided by 19 of the 31 New York charter schools operating in 2001-02. Those 19 schools enroll 70% of total charter school students. The margin of error is +/- 5.8%.
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