Only 1 in 4 parents strongly agree their child has enough opportunities to write to be prepared for college

Writing is a foundational skill necessary for academic and professional success. To become confident, competent writers, students need ample opportunities for practice along with personalized, actionable feedback. A recent survey of U.S. parents conducted by The Harris Poll and commissioned by The Graide Network, a provider of online grading and feedback services to K-12 schools, reveals that a vast majority of parents are not completely satisfied with either of these two aspects of their child’s education.

Among parents/legal guardians of children in grades 6-12, only 26% of parents strongly agree that:

• Their child receives enough personalized feedback from their teachers to become a better writer.
• Their child has enough opportunities to write in the classroom to be prepared for college.

Implementing these initiatives in the classroom is no small task and it is a responsibility that teachers cannot shoulder alone. “The average English teacher sees over 100 students per school year. Grading and providing feedback on a single set of essays is easily a 20+ hour job, on top of their ever-increasing list of important responsibilities. And that’s allotting just 10 minutes per student to closely read, reflect, and respond to a student’s work.” said Blair Pircon, co-founder and CEO of The Graide Network. “Even the most talented, experienced, and ambitious teachers are severely limited in the amount of writing they can assign and the amount of feedback they can provide to each student throughout the year due to these time constraints.”

At the same time, The Harris Poll survey also revealed that 80% of parents believe their child would benefit from objective feedback on their writing from someone other than their teacher. Objective, third-party feedback has been shown to increase student trust and acceptance of feedback, fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration in the classroom.

In a separate survey of Graide Network users from 2018-19, 92% of teachers said the amount of time saved by using Graide Network “Graiders” for grading is very important to their success and sustainability in the classroom.

“School leaders have an opportunity to increase writing opportunities for students by investing in resources that lessen the grading burden on teachers. It is a win-win for all parties: students are open to it, parents are interested, and it would maximize teacher capacity,” concluded Blair Pircon.

Among the Harris Poll survey’s other findings:

• Only 31% of parents strongly agree their child receives feedback from their teacher on their essays in a timely manner.
• Only 30% of parents strongly agree they receive enough information on their child’s growth and performance on writing assignments.

About The Graide Network

The Graide Network is building better writers through its online platform of feedback and grading support to K-12 schools. With an award-winning, innovative model, The Graide Network provides on-demand, formative feedback on student writing via remote teaching assistants. The support of “Graiders” unlocks the tremendous power of feedback to improve learning outcomes and puts relevant data at educators’ fingertips like never before. For more information, visit https://www.thegraidenetwork.com/.

Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Graide Network from December 9 – 11, 2019 among 2,007 U.S. adults ages 18 and older, of whom, 337 are parents/legal guardians of children in grades 6-12.  This online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Blair Pircon ([email protected]) or Kati Elliott ([email protected])