Curt Flewelling, FISM News
A new survey by the group EdChoice, finds that parents of school-aged children are significantly more hopeful about the future than non-parents. Parents also report being happier and more satisfied than their childless counterparts.
EdChoice is an education reform organization that was originally founded by famed economists Milton and Rose Friedman. The group, formally named the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice, is committed to advancing school choice for all children nationwide.
The study revealed quite a disparity in the level of fulfillment that the two groups reported when asked to rate their personal satisfaction in the area of “general well-being.”
Respondents who had kids were significantly more satisfied than non-parents in the following areas:
- Mental Health – 42% to 35%.
- Physical Health – 37% to 25%.
- Relationships with family members – 51% to 37%.
- Overall well-being – 45% to 33%.
Parents reported being much more optimistic than non-parents when describing how they viewed the future. They chose words like hopeful, happy, and satisfied to articulate how they felt much more frequently than did the non-parent group.
The two groups responded in very dissimilar ways when asked how they felt about their life: 36% of parents said that they were “thriving” compared to just 23% of non-parents who felt that way.
EdChoice also solicited responses from Americans on the subject of education. A sobering 66% of pollees felt that K-12 education at the state and local level was on the wrong track. When asked about the state of education on the national level, the number rises to 75% who felt something was amiss.
Parents who home-schooled or had their children in private schools reported very different levels of satisfaction with their kids’ educational experience than parents who sent their kids to public school.
A majority of homeschooling parents (59%) and charter school parents (53%) reported that they are very satisfied with their child’s schooling experience. The same cannot be said by parents of public school kids, as only 39% said that they are pleased with the public school system.