We found that millennial parents are open to a wide range of methods to hold schools accountable for making sure students are learning properly. We were interested in who millennial parents believe should be held accountable when a school is not living up to that responsibility. We asked our focus groups, “What should happen if a school is consistently failing?”
We know millennial parents use a variety of ways to measure their kids’ success in school. Next, we wanted to know how millennial parents evaluate the schools themselves. School culture? Test scores? Extra-curriculars? We asked our focus groups to sketch out what criteria they use to judge a school.
Millennial parents use many different criteria to judge if their kids are getting the skills they need. We wanted to learn how millennial parents are evaluating if their kids are being properly prepared for the future. Grades? Conversations with teachers? Test scores? A combination? We asked our focus groups, “What are the important things you look at to measure how much your kid is learning?”
Millennial parents care not only about their kids’ academic skills but career and life skills. We asked our focus groups, “What is the purpose of a public education?” and “What skills do you expect your kids to have upon graduation?”
Millennial parents expect a lot out of their kids’ schools. We wanted to know how education has changed since millennial parents themselves were in school. We asked our focus groups, “Is millennial parenting different than the way you were raised?”
Last year, the Walton Family Foundation moved forward with even greater intensity, focus and commitment to expanding opportunity for more people. Over the past two decades, our annual grant making has increased more than sevenfold from $50 million to more than $375 million last year. In 2014, we collaborated with more than 1,900 partners on initiatives across the U.S. and the world. If you could travel with me to our grantee communities, you would see schools that are providing transformative educational opportunities and preparing students for success in college and careers. You would see a riverbed that once was barren, now showing visible increases in vegetation thanks to a historic “pulse flow.” And you would see a father teaching his son to ride a bike on a new greenway trail, linking families and nature.
