In a new report, Never Going Back: An Analysis of Parent Sentiment on Education, the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools examines results from a survey of more than 5,000 parents conducted by The Harris Poll in May 2022. Survey results provide deep insights into how parents feel about education, whether and why theyve made any changes in how their school-aged children are educated, how their views have changed over the past two years, and the likelihood of their voting decisions being influenced by views on education.
Major takeaways from the report:
Parents value choice93% agree one size doesnt fit all in education. More than one in four parents are school-type switchers and 86% of all parents we surveyed want options for their children other than the district school they are zoned for or assigned to attend.
Charter schools are a popular choice among parents who switched the type of school their children attend.
Safety is a number one priority.
Parents who switched school types are happy with the choices they made. Eighty-nine percent of parents whose children made a switch report that they or their child experienced a positive change as a result.
More than four in five parents (83%) agree that education has become a more important political issue to them than it was in the past, and 82% are willing to vote outside their party on the issue of education.
Support for charter schools is high. Three in four parents want more public charter school offerings in their area.
The National Alliance commissioned this poll as a follow-up to the 2021 report, Voting with Their Feet: A State-level Analysis of Public Charter School and District Public School Enrollment Trends, which found that at least 1.4 million students left their district public schools during the first full year of the pandemic. Never Going Back answers questions about the movement and motivations of parents who switched schools during and prior to the pandemic.
Want even more? Watch a webinar with the National Alliance and The Harris Poll providing a deep dive into the data.
Download DocumentPublication Date: 24/08/2022
