by Jill Barshay, The Hechinger Report
January 12, 2026
Conservatives have lengthy argued that unwed motherhood and single parenting are main drivers of poor scholar achievement. They contend that conventional two-parent households — ideally with a married mom and father — present the soundness youngsters want to reach faculty. Single-parent households, extra widespread amongst low-income households, are blamed for weak educational outcomes.
That argument has resurfaced prominently in Mission 2025, a coverage blueprint developed by the conservative Heritage Basis that requires the federal authorities to gather and publish extra schooling information damaged out by household construction.
Mission 2025 acknowledges that the Training Division already collects a few of this information, however asserts that it doesn’t make it public. That’s not true, although you want experience to extract it. Once I contacted the Heritage Basis, the group responded that the family-structure information ought to nonetheless be “available” to a layman, similar to scholar achievement by race and intercourse. Truthful level.
Associated: Our free weekly e-newsletter alerts you to what analysis says about colleges and lecture rooms.
With some assist, I discovered the figures and the outcomes complicate the conservative declare.
Since 2013, the Nationwide Evaluation of Instructional Progress (NAEP), usually referred to as the Nation’s Report Card, has requested college students about who lives of their dwelling. Whereas the query doesn’t seize each household association, the solutions present an affordable, albeit imperfect, proxy for household construction and it permits the general public to look at how a nationally consultant pattern of scholars from several types of households carry out academically.
I wished to take a look at the connection between household construction and scholar achievement by household revenue. Single-parent households are much more widespread in low-income communities and I didn’t need to conflate achievement gaps by revenue with achievement gaps by household construction. For instance, 43 % of low-income eighth graders stay with just one dad or mum in contrast with 13 % of their high-income friends. I wished to know whether or not youngsters who stay with just one dad or mum carry out worse than youngsters with the identical household revenue who stay with each dad and mom.
To investigate the latest information from the 2024 NAEP examination, I used the NAEP Knowledge Explorer, a public device developed by testing group ETS for the Nationwide Middle for Training Statistics (NCES). I advised an ETS researcher what I wished to know and he confirmed me the best way to generate the cross-tabulations, which I then replicated independently throughout 4 assessments: fourth- and eighth-grade studying and math. Lastly, I vetted the outcomes with a former senior official at NCES and with a present workers member on the governing board that oversees the NAEP evaluation.
The evaluation reveals a putting sample.
Amongst low-income college students, achievement differs little by household construction. Fourth- and eighth-grade college students from low-income households rating at roughly the identical degree whether or not they stay with each dad and mom or with just one dad or mum. Two-parent households don’t confer a measurable educational benefit on this group. Fourth-grade studying is a superb instance. Among the many socioeconomic backside third of scholars, those that stay with each dad and mom scored a 199. Those that stay with simply mother scored 200. The outcomes are virtually similar and, if something, a smidge greater for the children of single mothers.
As socioeconomic standing rises, nevertheless, variations by household construction grow to be extra pronounced. Amongst middle- and high-income college students, these dwelling with each dad and mom have a tendency to attain greater than their friends dwelling with just one dad or mum. The hole is largest among the many most prosperous college students. In fourth grade studying, for instance, higher-income youngsters who stay with each dad and mom scored a 238, a whopping 10 factors greater than their friends who stay with solely their mothers. Specialists argue over the that means of a NAEP level, however some equate 10 NAEP factors to a college 12 months’s value of studying. It’s substantial.
Household construction issues much less for low-income scholar achievement
Nonetheless, it’s higher to be wealthy in a single-parent family than poor in a two-parent family. Excessive-income college students raised by a single dad or mum considerably outperform low-income college students who stay with each dad and mom by no less than 20 factors, underscoring that cash and the benefits it brings — akin to entry to assets, secure housing, and academic help — matter excess of family composition alone. In different phrases, revenue far outweighs household construction in the case of scholar achievement.
Regardless of the NAEP information, Jonathan Butcher, performing director of the middle for schooling coverage on the Heritage Basis, stands by the rivalry that household construction issues vastly for scholar outcomes. He factors out that analysis for the reason that landmark Coleman report of 1966 has constantly discovered a relationship between the 2. Most just lately, in a 2022 American Enterprise Institute-Brookings report, 15 students concluded that youngsters “raised in secure, married-parent households usually tend to excel at school, and usually earn greater grade level averages” than youngsters who are usually not. Two latest books, Brad Wilcox’s “Get Married” (2024) and Melissa Kearney’s “The Two-Mum or dad Privilege” (2023), make the case, too, and so they level out that youngsters raised by married dad and mom are about twice as prone to graduate from faculty as youngsters who are usually not. Nonetheless, it is unclear to me if all of this evaluation has disaggregated scholar achievement by household revenue as I did with the NAEP information.
Associated: Trump administration makes good on many Mission 2025 schooling targets
Household construction is a persistent theme for conservatives. Simply final week the Heritage Basis launched a report on strengthening and rebuilding U.S. households. In a July 2025 e-newsletter, Robert Pondiscio, senior fellow on the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative assume tank, wrote that “the best intervention in schooling just isn’t one other literacy coach or SEL program. It’s dad.” He cited a June 2025 report, “Good Fathers, Flourishing Children,” by students and advocates. (Disclosure: A gaggle led by one of many authors of this report, Richard Reeves, is among the many funders of The Hechinger Report.)
That conclusion is partially supported by the NAEP information, however just for a comparatively small share of scholars from higher-income households (The share of high-income youngsters dwelling with solely their mom ranges between 7 and 10 %. The one-parent charge is greater for eighth graders than for fourth graders.) For low-income college students, who’re Pondiscio’s and the students’ foremost concern, it’s not the case.
The info has limitations. The NAEP survey doesn’t distinguish amongst divorced households, grandparent-led households or same-sex dad and mom. Joint custody preparations are seemingly grouped with two-parent households as a result of youngsters might say that they stay with each mom and father, if not on the identical time. Even so, these nuances are unlikely to change the core discovering: For low-income college students, educational outcomes are largely comparable no matter whether or not they stay with each dad and mom all the time, among the time or solely stay with one dad or mum.
The underside line is that calls for brand new federal information assortment by household construction, like these outlined in Mission 2025, might not reveal what advocates anticipate. A household’s checking account issues greater than a marriage ring.
Contact workers author Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Sign, or barshay@hechingerreport.org.
This story about household construction and scholar achievement was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, unbiased information group targeted on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join Proof Factors and different Hechinger newsletters.
This <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-family-structure-student-achievement/”>article</a> first appeared on <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://hechingerreport.org”>The Hechinger Report</a> and is republished right here beneath a <a goal=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/”>Inventive Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Worldwide License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/hechingerreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/cropped-favicon.jpg?match=150percent2C150&ssl=1″ fashion=”width:1em;peak:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://hechingerreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&put up=114283&ga4=G-03KPHXDF3H” fashion=”width:1px;peak:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: perform() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-family-structure-student-achievement/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/hechingerreport.org/p.js”></script>
