Talking to Parents Begins with Listening to Parents
By Paige Kowalski, Director, State Policy and Advocacy, Data Quality Campaign
In the current education space, there are suddenly numerous groups and spokespeople to “get the parent voice” out there in the debate. We have parent groups that want to see Common Core State Standards replaced, or student privacy better protected, or better teacher quality policies enacted. Parent voices are critical to listen to because they are voicing real concerns about their children education. But, as a parent myself, I wonder if it is truly possible for a single group’s voice to represent a body of such diverse individuals. After all, the only real thing that parents have in common is the single decision to become a parent in the first place. It is possible that the only parent voice that might be heard is simply the loudest and not the most representative of views. How can we better understand what parents really want? How can we make sure that we are using our communications opportunities to provide real, accurate, and clear information to parents about current education policies and practices?
To meet this challenge, the Data Quality Campaign set out to listen to parents. We traveled to Seattle, Phoenix, Kansas City, and Philadelphia to listen to an extremely diverse group of 100 parents, spanning ethnicity and income levels, who all had one thing in common – each participant was a parent with a child attending a public school. Here are the questions we hoped these parents would answer:
1) What are your primary concerns about your child’s education?
2) Do you have the information you need to support your child’s goals and advocate on his/her behalf?
3) How do you know if your child is succeeding? How do you know if your child’s school is succeeding?
Much of what we heard didn’t surprise us. What did surprise us was the consistency of opinions across the country. These 100 parents overwhelmingly expressed the following four sentiments:
- Data collection and data use were not top-of-mind concerns for parents. They focused their immediate concerns on things they see in the classroom with their children, such as overcrowding and too much testing.
- Parents trust educators and schools with their child’s data, but want more transparency about what’s being collected, who has access to it, and how it is being used. They also want more access to data on their own children so they can work in partnership with teachers to improve student achievement.
- Parents are perhaps the biggest advocates of . Time and time again, they talked about the need for educators, especially teachers, to have the right training to use data in ways that help, not harm, kids.
- Parents saw themselves as chief data collectors and want to be part of the solution. The idea that student information could empower parents to make better decisions for their family resonated strongly across all groups.
Parent access to data was a top concern to parents – like the character, Veruca Salt, in the novel, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, they want it and they want it now. One mother in Philadelphia told us, “If you don’t have the right information or can’t access the right information, you can’t really help your child.” In Kansas City, another mom explained, “That’s one of my biggest frustrations that they do these tests and then they don’t share the scores until way late and you are left thinking okay, where are they? There’s a new test that they just gave and they are not going to have the scores until next year. Well, fabulous.”
So what now? To begin, think about what you can do to ensure parents have timely access to their children’s data? As of 2013, only 14 states had provided student level longitudinal data to parents. Are parents receiving student growth data in a timely manner? How can you support districts to do this better in addition to leveraging your state’s data system? Also, only six states have addressed in a high quality manner through their teacher licensing policies. Using data effectively in classrooms won’t happen without a focus on building the knowledge, skills, and ability to do so. And, finally, be transparent about your data collection, access, and sharing policies and practices. Parents will always be concerned about safety whether it’s the school buses, the field trip operators, school evacuation plans, or, yes, data use.
Many of you reading this, like me, are parents and grapple with these same issues We recognize that assisting our children to be successful is our most important job. Maybe you can’t help your children with their 5th grade math homework and don’t understand why the school just adjusted its curriculum, but you do know one thing: you are your child’s most important advocate, and information about their education and school are critical to your ability to be successful in that endeavor. Let’s help all parents be successful by listening to them and taking the actions necessary to help them help their children.
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