Parents think their children are more engaged with school and enjoy their time there much more than they actually do, a gap in understanding that could signal that both parents and schools are missing an opportunity to keep kids invested in their academics, according to a new study.
The study released earlier this month by the Brookings Institution’s Center for Universal Education found that parents overestimate how much students “love” school, how much kids think they learn, and how much interest their children have in what they learn at school.
The findings highlight that students are less engaged with their schoolwork than their parents think, and also that schools haven’t kept parents in the loop about the reality of their kids’ school experience, according to Rebecca Winthrop, one of the report’s authors and the director of Brookings’ Center for Universal Education.
“What I’ve seen is it’s very hard for families to know and see what good learning looks like, and whether that’s the reality for their kids,” Winthrop said.
The findings add to a growing body of research that suggests schools generally do a poor job of communicating with families about students’ progress and performance outside of producing traditional report cards. Past surveys have found that parents often underestimate how often their children miss class and that they can be unaware when their children are struggling in class—oftentimes because report cards don’t paint an accurate picture.
While the gap between parents’ perceptions of their children’s engagement and academic performance and the reality may not seem like a top problem for schools to fix when considering all that they’re expected to manage, Winthrop said solving it should actually be a top priority. After all, parents are more likely to get involved when they know their children are struggling.
“I’m very convinced that student engagement has to be at the center of what schools do,” she said. “Because if you have a chronic absenteeism problem, you have an engagement problem. If you have a school completion problem, you have an engagement problem. If you have an achievement problem, you have an engagement problem. When kids are deeply engaged, all of those things turn around and are better, so I really do think we need to center this work.”
Parents’ understanding of students’ school experience drops as their kids get older
The Brookings Institution used information from a survey of more than 60,000 students in 3rd through 12th grades conducted by the nonprofit Transcend Education between October 2021 and March 2024. The group also surveyed 1,895 parents of children the same ages between August 2023 and March 2024.
Parents across all demographic categories appear to overestimate students’ enjoyment of school and how engaged they are there, according to the survey.
Overall, 60 percent of students say they learn a lot in school while 78 percent of parents said the same about their children. Meanwhile, 41 percent of students say they love school and 71 percent of parents believe their kids do—a gap of 30 percentage points.
The gaps tend to be smaller when students are younger. Parents do perceive that students’ enjoyment of school and their learning decrease as they get older, but they perceive the decrease to be much smaller than students report, according to the study.
For example, in 12th grade, only 29 percent of students reported loving school most of the time whereas 61 percent of their parents reported that their kids loved school.
The perception gap in student learning was smallest between 3rd grade students and their parents. Parents of 3rd graders were very close to their kids in terms of how much they said their kids were learning in school, with 86 percent of 3rd grade students saying they learn a lot in school compared with 84 percent of parents believing their children do.
By contrast, about 67 percent of 6th grade students reported they learn a lot in school, while 80 percent of their parents think they do. By 12th grade, 44 percent of students reported they learn a lot, and 75 percent of parents believe they do, a 31-percentage-point gap.
Report cards don’t tell the whole story
It’s not parents’ fault that they don’t fully understand the reality of their children’s school experience, Winthrop said. Families often receive limited information from schools about students’ performance and engagement. The most common benchmark of students’ progress is periodic report cards. But report cards can be misleading and lull parents into a false sense of security.
While student achievement has slid to historic lows since the start of the pandemic, a number of studies have shown that classroom grades have inched up.
Report cards are far from standardized, and often reflect how students act in class—whether they’re engaged and asking questions or showing up on time, for example—rather than solely their understanding of course material.
Absent a more holistic view of students’ performance—including clear information about standardized test scores and feedback from classroom teachers—parents aren’t likely to worry about their children’s progress, and they could miss critical opportunities to support or advocate for them as a result.
Schools can help parents understand student engagement
When it comes to students’ engagement and interest in school, parents can’t rely on their children to fully or clearly communicate about their experiences. Parents might ask their children how their school day was, and they might respond only with “good” or “fine”—especially as they get older.
“I think parents have become resigned to adolescents not sharing about learning at school,” Winthrop said. “They say it’s fine, parents check their grades and see they’re not failing, and that’s that. There’s really no language to continue the conversation.”
Schools should take proactive steps to regularly collect students’ feedback about how they feel about school, particularly how engaged they feel with their courses, peers, and teachers, Winthrop said. They could do this through surveys, focus groups, or small group meetings, she said. Then, schools can share that information with parents and caregivers, which could spark more meaningful conversations between parents and their children.
“It’s not parents’ fault that they’re in the dark,” Winthrop said. “Parents want to help their children do well, and we are not giving them the feedback loops, the tools, the guidance, to support that.”
Keeping parents in the loop and working with them as partners in their children’s education is important, Winthrop said, because it can create a larger pool of people who can catch problems earlier.
“Kids don’t just wake up from one day to the next and decide they don’t want to go to school. It is a symptom of disengagement, and it usually takes a long time,” she said. “If you can start seeing disengagement early, you can intervene sooner, before it impacts students’ attendance, academic performance, school completion, and so many other things.”
