Parental Expectations and Satisfaction with Charter Schools-Evidence From a Midwestern City School District

Abstract

The topic of this study is to determine what the parental expectations are for charter schools and whether or not those parents are satisfied given those expectations. This study focuses on three central questions: First, what are the parental expectations that are related to satisfaction with charter schools? Second, are some parental expectations more important than others in predicting satisfaction? And third, does the parental expectation-satisfaction relationship vary by key family characteristics, such as race/ethnicity, education, or socioeconomic status (SES)? The study focused on parents of students who attended charter schools in a typical Midwestern city. Surveys where distributed and collected at seven different charter schools with students ranging from K-12. The study found that in looking at 15 various expectation criteria that they could be narrowed down to3 essential areas: academics, school context, and extra-curricular activities. In analyzing these three essential areas the study found that charter parents have the highest expectations for academics but also have very high expectations for school context as well as extracurricular activities. In addition the study found that white parents had the highest satisfaction levels with academics, blacks had the highest satisfaction levels with school context and Hispanic parents got the most satisfaction from their schools through extracurricular activities. These findings could have important implications on how charters might tend to attract parents and for regular public schools to meet the needs of their current and potential students.