What School Attributes Make Parents More Likely to Recommend Your School?

By Dr. Harry Bloom, Founder and President, Benchmarking for Good, Inc.

Benchmarking for Good’s market research among over 1,200 faith based day school parents reveals the factors that have the highest correlation with parents’ willingness to recommend enrollment at their kids’ school to friends and family. There are some big surprises in the list, because of what is not there: high academic quality. Instead, the top factors are the softer, environmental factors that often get less attention.

THE LIST IN RANKED ORDER (CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS*)

1. Provides Strong Religious Guidance to Enhance Students' Growth (r = 0.560)

2. Responsive to My Communications (r = 0.547)

3. Provides Effective Role Models (r = 0.523)

4. Welcoming Environment for Our Entire Family (r = 0.521)

5. Positive and Nurturing Environment for Students (r = 0.516)

6. Focuses on Teaching Good Values and Building Character (r = 0.515)

7. Positive Relationship between Administration and Students (r = 0.498)

8. Promotes My Family's Desired Religious Development (r = 0.494)

9. Provides Effective Mental Health Guidance (r = 0.471)

10. Proactive in Communication about My Child's Situation (r = 0.461)

*Correlation coefficients between 0.50-0.70 are considered strong correlations in social science research. The top 6 attributes in our analysis fall in this range, with "Provides Strong Religious Guidance" leading at 0.560.

Key Insights that emerge from this analysis:

1. Religious and values-oriented aspects of education show the strongest correlation, with parent satisfaction and likelihood to recommend (3 of the top 8 factors).

2. School-family communication is extremely important, with both "Responsive to Communications" and "Proactive Communication" in the top 10.

3. School environment factors like "Welcoming Environment," "Positive and Nurturing Environment," and "Positive Relationships Between Administration and Students" are strongly associated with parent recommendations.

4. Interestingly, traditional academic measures like "Academic Excellence in General Studies" (r = 0.385) and "Mathematics" (r = 0.277) show moderate to weaker correlations compared to environmental, religious, and communication factors.

5. The lowest correlations are with facilities and extracurricular activities like "Physical Education" (r = 0.189) and "Visual and Performing Arts" (r = 0.216).

The data suggests that day school parents value the school's ability to provide religious guidance, effective communication, and a positive environment more strongly than specific academic achievements when considering whether to recommend the school to others.

To discuss these findings and how your institution can participate in future Benchmarking for Good grant programs to increase the positivity of your parents about your school please contact Dr. Harry Bloom at harrybloom@benchmarkingforgood.org

# Enrollment   #Day schools    #Parents   #Schools