Private Investments in Public Schools by Low- and High-Income U.S. Parents

• In Event: Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Topic - Education, Schooling

Abstract

Over the last 40 years, achievement gaps between low- and high-income children in the United States have increased precipitously, such that between 1950 and 2000, test score gaps between low-income (10th income percentile) children and their better-off (90th income percentile) peers doubled in size (Reardon, 2011). One potential contributor to these gaps is differences in parenting. Not only do economically advantaged parents engage in more educational activities with children than their less advantaged peers (Kalil, Ryan, & Corey, 2012), but the size of those gaps has increased over the past 30 years (Kalil, Ryan, Ziol-Guest, & Markowitz, 2016). School quality also contributes to test score gaps, and low-income children attend schools characterized by lower test scores, graduation rates, and teacher quality (Altonji & Mansfield, 2011) compared to more economically advantaged children. Parents’ private investments of time and money in their children’s school (e.g., through volunteer or fundraising activities) is yet another potential source of inequality in the resources available to support children’s learning. We know of no study that has examined income-based differences in parents’ private investments in their children’s schools over time.
The present paper investigates this question by examining income- and education-based differences in the time investments that parents make in their children’s schools, including the time they spend in general and PTA meetings, volunteering, and fundraising. We also examine whether and how these patterns may have changed over time.
To do so, we draw on data from the National Household Education Surveys (NHES). The NHES is a repeated cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of all households in the US designed to gather data on the educational activities of the U.S. population. We use data drawn from NHES’s Parent Involvement in Education Survey, using the 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2012, and 2016 waves. We examine responses to whether parents report attending a general school meeting, attending a PTO/PTA meeting, volunteering in their child’s school, and fundraising for the school. We compare the percentage of parents who report participating in each activity in the 90th, 50th, and 10th percentiles of the income (and education) distributions in each survey year.
Initial results show two key patterns. First, in every year, high-income parents (90th percentile) are more likely to report attending a general school meeting, volunteering in their child’s school, and fundraising for the school compared to parents in the 10th percentile. Second, the substantial income-based gaps in parental time investments in children’s schools have remained stable over time (even though the rate of participation in some of these activities has risen for low- and high-income parents alike). Our final paper will test whether parental education shapes these gaps in the same fashion as income and will assess the statistical significance of the socioeconomic differences and changes over time identified in preliminary models. We will also discuss these findings in light of their significance for the growing inequality of opportunity for children in the US.

Authors

• Ariel Kalil, University of Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Ryan, Georgetown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Samantha Steimle, Georgetown University
  Non-Presenting Author