The findings appear in a draft paper that has not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal and may still be revised. It was publicly circulated by the Becker Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago this month.
As test scores have fallen nationwide while grades have risen, the researchers believe that parents may be underinvesting in their children. “Parents are the key to children’s success,” said Ariel Kalil at the University of Chicago. “What you need is for parents to be making investments in their kids’ skill development, and you need that parental effort to be happening early and often. Anything that depresses parent investment is a problem.”
Kalil is concerned that this underinvestment in children is more pronounced in low-income communities, where, she said, high grades are often issued for below-grade-level skills. After the pandemic, schools struggled to persuade families to enroll in free tutoring and summer programs to make up for months of disrupted instruction. Many report cards showed solid grades, reducing the urgency for parents to act.
Paired with other recent research on long-term academic and economic consequences, this study strengthens the case that grade inflation isn’t harmless. Inflated grades may feel encouraging, but they can send false signals both to students, who may study less, and to parents, who may see less reason to step in. Ultimately, it not only hurts individuals, but American labor force skills and future economic growth, the researchers argue.
Kalil, a behavioral scientist, believes that parents have more confidence in grades because they are familiar and easier to understand. Meanwhile, score reports are complicated and even many well-educated parents are confused about scaled scores and percentile rankings.
A survey that accompanied the online experiment revealed that a sizable share of parents don’t trust standardized tests. Forty percent of the parents in the study said that tests were biased. Almost 30 percent thought student scores were a reflection of family income. Fewer than 20 percent of parents thought tests captured their children’s skills.
Kalil says there’s another psychological phenomenon at play even for parents who understand and value standardized tests: the tendency to ignore bad news when it is paired with good news. “If the report card is all A’s, there’s a cognitive bias towards sticking your head in the sand and rejecting the bad information,” said Kalil.
There were hints in the data that Hispanic families were most trusting of grades and least trusting of test scores, while Asian families were more willing to heed test results. But few Hispanic and Asian parents participated in the survey, so these patterns were not statistically significant. (Almost 70 percent of the respondents were white and 20 percent Black.) Parents with at least a bachelor’s degree also paid more attention to standardized exams.
Solving the problem won’t be easy. The researchers say schools can do more to explain what test scores measure and how to interpret them, but better communication alone may not shift parents’ instincts. Reversing grade inflation would be the most direct solution, but that would require a broader shift across schools — something that is unlikely to happen quickly.
In the meantime, the burden is on parents to read report cards with a critical eye. When grades and test scores don’t align, it’s worth asking why. A strong report card can be reassuring, but it may not always tell the full story of what a child knows — or what help they might need.
Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
This story about parents and report cards was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.