Communications, Indicators, Research

Parents Value, Trust, and Rely on Education Data

Parents Value, Trust, and Rely on Education Data

On behalf of the Data Quality Campaign, Harris Poll surveyed 914 US parents with children ages 5–17 about their attitudes toward data collection and data use in schools. This infographic displays key findings from the 2018 poll, demonstrating that parents value, trust, and rely on publicly reported education data and individual data about their child to make important decisions to support their child’s educational success.

Key findings include:

  • 90 percent of parents say that the overall performance of a school, like an A–F letter grade, has at least some influence on their decisionmaking about their child’s education.
  • 88 percent of parents say they personally rely on tangible data about their child (test scores, grades) to get a full picture of how their child is performing so they can support him or her as much as possible at home.
  • 94 percent of parents want their child’s teacher to use data related to their child’s progress in school, such as grades, attendance, and test scores, to help personalize his or her learning experience.
  • 87 percent of parents trust that their child’s school is keeping their child’s data private and secure, increasing from 81 percent in 2015.

View the infographic:

For more on how states can ensure that parents and others who support students have access to the right information to make decisions, see DQC’s Four Policy Priorities to Make Data Work for Students.

To view the infographic with results from the 2017 poll, click here.