PROVO, UTAH — A new study by a Brigham Young University professor shows parents prefer satisfaction in the classroom to soaring test scores.
The study looked at teachers requested by parents and their qualities as judged by principals. The name of the school district was not disclosed but was west of the Mississippi River.
Parents asked for teachers with high “satisfaction” ratings rather than teachers with high achievement ratings about 55 percent of the time, Lars Lefgren said.
Columbia Elementary Principal Barry Hansen said such findings bear out what he’s experienced at his school in West Jordan.
“The teachers who are very good and highly requested have an even disposition and give a lot of positive incentives,” Hansen said. “A good teacher will focus on kids doing well and use them as role models.” The federal No Child Left Behind law demands schools perform at certain levels on math and reading tests. But parents often are more concerned with a teacher’s ability to satisfy students than to raise academic achievement, according to the study.
The law might be missing what many parents want most, according to the study.
“While achievement is important, what we’re trying to produce in schools and what parents want schools to produce is much broader than test score gains,” Lefgren said.
When given the choice between a teacher with high satisfaction ratings and an average teacher, parents in wealthier areas were likely to choose the high-satisfaction teacher 65 percent of the time.
But parents in poorer schools weren’t any more likely to choose the high-satisfaction teacher over an average one. They were, however, more likely to choose a high-achieving teacher over an average one — if they made requests at all.
White, low-income parents were only about 60 percent as likely to request a teacher as others. Lefgren said they might have felt intimidated or didn’t know the schools well.
The study by Lefgren and Brian Jacob of the University of Michigan will appear in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
——— Information from: The Salt Lake Tribune,
