How Americans view the K-12 education system reached a record low in 2023, but updated polling by Gallup indicates perceptions of K-12 schools have improved in the last year.
According to Gallup, 63% of American adults surveyed in 2023 said they were dissatisfied with the school system, compared to 35% who said they were satisfied. In an August 2024 poll, 55% say they’re dissatisfied, while 43% claim to be satisfied.
The 2024 survey largely matches figures from 2022, when 55% said they were dissatisfied while 42% said they were satisfied.
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Only once in the last 20 annual surveys have Americans been more likely to be satisfied with education than not. In 2019, 51% of those polled said they were satisfied with the school system, while 47% said they were unsatisfied.
Until 2020, sentiment among Republicans and Democrats about education was largely similar. Coming out of the pandemic, there has been a definite political divide.
In the latest poll, 53% of Democrats say they’re satisfied, while just 33% of Republicans expressed satisfaction with education.
Parents giving higher marks
Of those polled, 69% are not parents of kids currently enrolled in K-12. But when parents of K-12 students were asked about how satisfied they are with their oldest child’s education, 70% said they were satisfied while 29% said they weren’t.
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Satisfaction among parents has declined since 2019, when 82% expressed satisfaction with the quality of education their oldest child was receiving.
The survey found that 78% parents of were sending their kids to public schools, while 8% were attending private schools and 8% were being home-schooled. Parents of students attending charter schools accounted for 4% of the survey.