Satisfaction with quality of K-12 education falls to record low: Gallup

Americans’ satisfaction with the K-12 education system has tied for a record low at the start of the 2023-24 school year, according to a poll Gallup released Thursday. 

Only 36 percent of Americans today are completely or somewhat satisfied with U.S. education, equaling the low seen in 2000. 

The record comes as both Republicans and Democrats are finding little satisfaction in the educational system, with a record low 25 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of Democrats being satisfied. 

Although Gallup, which has been asking this question since 1999, didn’t offer any explanation for why the numbers have dropped, the political landscape surrounding education has become increasingly volatile since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Schools have been dealing with decades of learning loss, teacher shortages, student misbehavior and chronic absenteeism since the arrival of COVID-19. Meanwhile, politically, fights over book bans, the teaching of sexual orientation and gender and the treatment of transgender students have riddled school boards. 

There is a large gap in Americans’ feelings about K-12 education between the overall population and parents with students in the system, however. Gallup found over 76 percent of K-12 parents are satisfied with their oldest child’s education.

But this positive view among parents seems to apply only to their children’s education, because when they were asked how they feel about the system nationally, their satisfaction rate dropped to 41 percent. 

“Still, parents of elementary and secondary school students remain quite satisfied with the education their child is getting, and they offer mostly positive reviews of the performance of their children’s teachers,” Gallup said in its release. “If parental satisfaction wanes, however, parents may choose to move their child to a different school.”

The survey was conducted from Aug. 1-23 among 1,014 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.