A new poll showed that nearly 70% of California parents would not choose traditional public school for their children, instead opting for private, religious, or charter schools.
The survey, which was published Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), asked California parents what type of school they would choose to send their children to if cost and location were not an issue.
The most popular option was private schools, with 42% of California parents saying they prefer to send their child to a private school. 31% said they would choose traditional public schools, 14% said they would choose charter schools, and 13% said they would send their children to a religious school.
District: 31%
Charter: 14%
Private: 55%— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) April 30, 2021
Just 9% of adults and 6% of public school parents said that they would give their local public schools a letter grade of “A.” 32% of adults and 44% of public school parents said that they would give the schools a grade of “B.” (RELATED: Coronavirus Lockdowns Are Forcing Students To Miss Time In School. Here’s How It Could Impact Their Future)
A majority of adults and public school parents said that they approved of the way their school district handled school closures during the coronavirus pandemic. However, the percentage of public school parents who approved of how their district handled school closures was much higher at the beginning of the pandemic.
65% of adults and 72% of public school parents said they approved of the way their local school district handled the closures when asked in April of 2021. In April 2020, 92% of public school parents said they approved, meaning the approval of school closures dropped by 20% from 2020 to 2021.
A majority of public school parents said that they were either “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with their ability to provide a productive environment for online learning. 15% said they were very satisfied with the distance learning environment, and 48% said they were somewhat satisfied.
The vast majority of all adults and public school parents said that schools should be either partially or fully opened and expressed concern that schools may not be open in the fall. 53% of adults and 48% of public school parents said schools should be partially opened, while 28% of adults and 27% of public school parents said schools should be fully opened. 61% of adults and 66% of public school parents said that they were either “very” or “somewhat” concerned about schools not being fully open in the fall.
The overwhelming majority of both adults (86%) and public school parents (83%) believed that children were falling behind in their learning during the pandemic.
PPIC surveyed more than 1,700 California adults with a margin of error of around 3.3 percentage points.