President inspires jump in school involvement among African-American parents

Posted by on August 17, 2009

President inspires jump in school involvement among African-American parents

A new survey commissioned by GreatSchools has found that African-American parents of children in K-12 schools are now more likely to volunteer in their child’s classroom, a phenomenon that USA TODAY characterizes as an “Obama Effect” on volunteerism, narrowing what it calls “a volunteering gap.” The survey questioned 1,086 parents of children presently in public or private K-12 school across ethnic and socioeconomic sectors. Among other things, the survey found that the number of African-American parents who intend to volunteer has jumped this year by 37 percent, in contrast with a six percent rise among white parents. “Clearly, this data is showing that the parent in chief, President Obama, is having an impact on parents’ thinking, especially African-American parents’ thinking,” said GreatSchools CEO Bill Jackson, noting that the president has urged all parents to turn off the TV, read to their children, and attend parent-teacher conferences. USA TODAY sees a parallel to the original “Obama Effect” presented last winter, in which researchers found that in a series of online tests, the performance gap between blacks and whites shrank dramatically during two key moments spotlighting Mr. Obama in the 2008 campaign.

Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-08-06-obama-effect-schools_N.htm

See the survey: http://www.greatschools.net/pdf/The-Economy’s-Impact-on-Back-to-School.pdf