Is it typical, when registering a child for school, for the forms to ask for the mother and father's highest level of education?

This is fairly typical – most likely for demographic reports. If your student enrolls in any AP or IB classes, those tests also ask for parents highest level of education.

University applications ask for this information as well. I don’t think it’s uncommon at all.

I don’t know why but almost every child related form you fill out from now on will ask this. It’s on the FASFA, college stuff, it’s on all of them.

The best predictor for educational success is the father’s educational achievement. (No, not the Mom’s, although that may change over time).

This is for kindergarten.

@wundayatta: in my daughter’s case, her father is deceased, so only my level of education will be an issue :)

Not uncommon. Even our pediatrician’s office asked this, too.

The one that got me was the assessment for our son’s ADD. They asked whether either of us (father or mother of the child) were “gifted” students or had any learning disabilities, mental retardation, etc. I understand WHY they asked on the assessment..but my hubby and I cracked several mean jokes at each other reading thru it nonetheless..

I’ve seen this at all the school’s I’ve registered my son for. It seems pretty standard to me.

@wundayatta Does it matter if the father is not in the child’s life? I’ve never heard that before, so I’m just curious.

I don’t think it matters if the father is in the child’s life, but that’s probably because it is statistical, and variation is smoothed out.

It’s weird, because if the father is a lawyer and the mother didn’t graduate from high school, the children still do much better. It makes sense to think that the mother’s influence is very important, and I’m sure it is. It’s just that it doesn’t correlate as highly with childhood success. I don’t know why.

Then again, I don’t know how the data were gathered. Maybe when they said “father” they meant the man who was present in the household. I just don’t know about these cases that don’t fit that standard model.

It may be common, but is it lawful? Not necessarily. For any question you don’t want to answer (usually these are for state surveys) you may leave it blank.

Completely normal.

Wow, I never knew my dad, and my birth mother was salutatorian of her class. So the bastard was a smart guy?

The aunt who raised me dropped out in 10th grade. I wonder if they asked her for her educational background when she filled out whatever forms for me and her son. Did they do that in the 70s?

Yes

Yes, but keep in mind when filling out any form, you only have to answer questions you feel comfortable about. Just leave the other blank. If they ask, you can question the need for it.

Just make sure to be truthful (not that I think you wouldn’t be) I know a very smart girl who was accepted to a very difficult boarding school – only to be kicked out later when they discovered a lie regarding the father on her application.

@JessicaRTBH: I was truthful in filling it out. Regardless, this is public school so they could not kick my daughter out if I did lie.

@jca There was a case recently where a Mother was actually arrested and jailed because of lying on a public school application. She put a false address to get her children in a better school.

@YARNLADY: as I said, I was truthful. This type of question and curiosity as to why they asked it has nothing that would get anyone arrested, as would lying about the child’s address would. Even if I did lie about the father’s education, that’s not going to get anyone arrested or kicked out of school.

@jca Agreed, it was just a random reference to a recent news article.

It may , now, be ‘normal’...but I do not care for it.