MOST MASSACHUSETTS PARENTS of K-12 students think their child’s academic performance is at or above grade level – despite statewide data showing that’s not the case.

That stands out as one of the most striking findings from a new poll of Massachusetts parents nearly three years after the COVID pandemic upended school life for the state’s 900,000 students.

The survey, conducted by the MassINC Polling Group for the Education Trust, also found that more than 80 percent of parents give their child’s school an A or B when asked to give it an overall grade, and most parents think their child’s school has enough mental health and academic resources to meet their child’s needs. 

Just 24 percent of parents thought their child was behind grade level academically, while 73 percent thought they were at or above that level. The most recent MCAS results, however, paint a very different picture, with 59 percent of 3-8 grade students behind grade level in English and 60 percent behind in math. 

“There’s a disconnect between what many parents are seeing and what the size and scope of the challenge is,” said Steve Koczela, president of MassINC Polling Group, which surveyed 1,519 Massachusetts parents in late November and early December. “What it tells me is there’s not awareness of the challenge COVID has left behind.” 

In terms of making up for learning losses, parents were much more interested in help their child could get during regular school hours than in enrolling them in programming outside those hours. 

While 74 percent of parents said they would be very or somewhat likely to send their child to small group tutoring during school hours, that figure fell to 66 percent for after-school help, 42 percent for summer school, and 29 percent for tutoring during school vacation weeks.

While 73 percent of parents said their child’s school has enough academic resources to help students who need them, that falls to 56 percent for the subgroup of parents who believe their child is behind grade level academically. 

“Parents are really relying on teachers to get a sense of how students are doing,” said Chanthy Lopes, assistant director of communications and engagement for Education Trust in Massachusetts. “Parents don’t necessarily dig into or understand scores. I think there’s opportunity for state leaders to do more to make sure that information is accessible and understandable to families.” 

Ed Lambert, executive director of the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education, said the poll revealed a pattern that is seen across the country. “National polls have indicated that parents often believe their students are doing better than they actually are doing,” he said. “I think that’s in part because they’re not getting good information from the schools where their children go.”

Lambert said the small share of parents who think their child is behind academically is particularly striking in light of the debate playing out at the state level over how to recover from the steep learning losses that occurred during the pandemic. Last week, the state education department suggested a realistic timeline would be giving schools four years to make up learning losses for those who fell the furthest behind during the pandemic. 

Lambert and several members of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education criticized the proposed timeline as not nearly ambitious enough to help close achievement gaps. 

Koczela, the MassINC Polling Group president, said the new poll results underscore some of the challenge of pushing for more aggressive recovery targets. 

“It’s easy to have major reforms when everyone is demanding them,” he said. “It’s hard when parents are dealing with their own struggles and impacts of the pandemic and not prioritizing recovery or even understanding the size of the problem very well, as the data would suggest.” 

“At the end of the day, I trust parents, but they have to be properly informed,” said Lambert. “If there’s a general lack of urgency, it’s on those who collect the data, the state, and others, who should be sharing that data in a way that informs parents so they can help drive change and drive urgency on behalf of themselves and their students.” 

MICHAEL JONAS

NEW STORIES FROM COMMONWEALTH MAGAZINE

Open to alternatives: Senate President Karen Spilka and Gov. Maura Healey appear open to exploring alternatives to the MCAS test. Opposition to the test is led by the Massachusetts Teachers Association. Read more.

Marijuana loan fund: Appointees are named to a board that will advise the Healey administration on how to dispense money from a social equity marijuana loan fund. Read more.

OPINION

SJC backsliding: Aliza Hochman Bloom, a fellow at New England Law, accuses the Supreme Judicial Court of backsliding on racial disparities in policing with its decision in the Karen K. case. Read more.

STORIES FROM ELSEWHERE AROUND THE WEB

 

MUNICIPAL MATTERS  

A Berkshire Eagle editorial praises officials in Stockbridge, the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of the Mohicans, and the Legislature for transferring historic records to the tribe.

The number of homeless people in Worcester is rising. (Telegram & Gazette)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

UMass Chan Medical School will be a partner in an NIH study that seeks to look at the use of telehealth to test for and treat COVID in underserved communities. (Telegram & Gazette)

Despite the current uptick in COVID cases, the winter surge does not seem as large as in either of the last two years. (MassLive)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

House Republicans, in one of their first moves since taking power, are launching a new committee to investigate government agencies and individuals who investigated former president Donald Trump. (Washington Post) 

President Biden said he was “surprised” to learn his lawyers found classified documents in an office he maintained in Washington after leaving office as vice president. (New York Times) 

ELECTIONS

The Massachusetts Republican Party’s finances are in shambles as the party heads toward the election of party chair later this month. (Boston Globe) 

EDUCATION

Boston University agrees to sell four buildings in Los Angeles that it received from a donor to a group representing the tenants, who had been concerned they could be evicted. (GBH)

ARTS/CULTURE

The Massachusetts Cultural Council awards $15,000 grants to 50 state-designated cultural; districts. (MetroWest Daily News) 

A Clark professor, who teaches visual arts, won a contest to have her design featured on Bounty paper towels. (Telegram & Gazette)

TRANSPORTATION

The Federal Aviation Administration paused all domestic departures this morning until 9 a.m. after an overnight outage of a system that alerts pilots and airports of hazards. (NPR)

A new report from traffic analytics firm INRIX says Boston has the second worst traffic congestion of any city in the country, though traffic levels are 10 percent below pre-pandemic levels. (Boston Herald) 

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch, who sits on the MBTA board of directors, says he’s glad the T has ended its vaccine mandate for employees, which he called “foolish” in light of data that vaccinated people were continuing to get infected with COVID. (Boston Herald) 

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Extreme weather, fueled by climate change, cost the US $165 billion in 2022, according to a report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. (NPR)

Gov. Maura Healey visits UMass Dartmouth to discuss renewable energy and climate resiliency. (Standard-Times)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

A special prosecutor investigating two MBTA police officers in a case that raised questions about the judgment of Suffolk DA Kevin Hayden concluded the officers should not face criminal charges related to a coverup of their actions, though he calls their conduct “below the expectations we have for law enforcement officers.” (Boston Globe) 

Cohasset resident Brian Walshe, whom all eyes are on in the case of the disappearance of his wife, has a troubled – and shady – background. (Boston Globe) 

MassLive looks at what has changed in the two years since Massachusetts passed its police reform bill.