When the government no longer assigns every child to a school, and multiple options are available, how do parents choose among them? It’s an under-explored question. Researchers are only beginning to understand what parents’ preferences really are in choice-heavy states like Florida, or what the school choice experience looks like in cities like New Orleans where charter schools predominate and vouchers are also available.
For that reason, it’s worth learning more about how sophisticated parents — specifically, those who happen to be teachers — vet school options for their own kids. The Association of American Educators recently posed that question to its members, and the results are one of the more interesting nuggets in the annual member survey it recently released.
AAE is a professional service organization for teachers, and an alternative to unions. Its members tend to be more supportive of school choice, with 38 percent saying they personally benefit from it and 79 percent saying they back charter schools — stronger support than Education Next found among teachers in its most recent poll.
Spokeswoman Alix Freeze said more than 1,300 members responded to this year’s survey.
According to the accompanying report, nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of AAE members with school-age children said they preferred to interview teachers and administrators before deciding on a school. Closer to a third said they looked at test scores (33 percent) or school data websites like greatschools.org (30 percent). About a fifth (21 percent) said they relied on state accountability reports.
The results suggest teachers may want information about schools that can’t necessarily be found on paper or online before they decide whether their children should attend.
Do these teachers’ preferred methods for comparing schools match those of the general public? Do they find more value in meeting fellow educators than non-teacher parents would? Are there ways school systems could make it easier for parents to talk to educators at multiple schools before making a choice? This survey suggests those are questions worth exploring. Perhaps teachers unions and other educator organizations should ask their members, too.
