B-flation: How Good Grades Can Sideline Parents

• In Event: Family Engagement as an Equity-Driven Strategy for Improving Student Outcomes

Abstract

All families want their children to be successful, but unfortunately – and perhaps surprisingly – many families are unaware of their students' true academic standing. In fact, for the past decade, Learning Heroes has conducted national surveys of families, which reveal that while almost nine in 10 parents say their child is at or above grade level in reading (88%) and math (89%), other measures, including standardized test scores, suggest that less than half of children are performing at grade level. Why are families so unaware of how their children are doing?

Learning Heroes partnered with Gallup to conduct a study to better understand the discrepancy between parent perceptions and student performance. The Gallup-Learning Heroes study used the Gallup Panel to report on a representative sample of nearly 2,000 parents of K-12 public school students nationwide, sharing their aspirations, their experiences with and perceptions of their children’s progress, their process for getting information from and engaging with their child’s school and their hopes and worries for the future. The study’s findings — complemented by national data on student performance — highlight the nuances on parents’ understanding of whether their child is performing at grade level and demonstrate that some parents are relying on a small subset of the multiple measures needed to understand the full picture of their children’s progress.

One of the measures that parents rely on most is report cards. Our study findings reveal that 64% percent of parents cite report cards as an important measure to know how their child achieves, suggesting parents rely on report cards as a primary measure of their child’s progress. With 79% of parents saying their child receives mostly B’s or better, it is understandable that nearly nine in 10 parents believe their child is on grade level in reading and math.

Absent a more holistic picture, parents could miss out on taking additional actions that could make a significant difference in ensuring their child receives the support they need to be successful. In this paper, we overview our study methodology and findings, which highlight key opportunities to better support families — especially when it comes to deciphering report cards and other measures and generating awareness of what a report card really means.

Author

• Eyal Bergman, Learning Heroes