Why did satisfaction with K-12 rise in the past year despite little changes?

Satisfaction with the K-12 education system is back on the rise after a steep decline last year, with experts saying rhetoric around the institution is sparking hope despite little tangible changes. 

A new Gallup poll found American satisfaction went up 7 percentage points after hitting a record low in 2023 at 36 percent.  

Experts say the rise in satisfaction is likely due to perception from how K-12 is discussed by political figures and the media as the system is still struggling in similar ways compared to last year. 

“I think one thing that stands out to me, and looking back at Gallup polls and parental satisfaction with K-12 education, is that the jump that we see this year, seven percentage points or so, is really sort of jumping back to levels that look a little bit similar to pre-pandemic levels,” said Chris Curran, director of the Education Policy Research Center at the University of Florida. 

While satisfaction has dipped during the pandemic, the school system has not recovered in important ways over the past year.  

Pandemic learning loss, which has been a top concern among parents and policymakers, still shows students going into high school are a full year behind academically. 

Other problems like chronic absenteeism persist, and schools will struggle this academic year after emergency funding from COVID-19 dries up in September.  

“I think there's a piece of the puzzle or component that probably relates to the politics around education. So these past couple of years, we've seen a lot of attention to schooling and education in the media and among politicians, a lot of legislation across states that are targeting things like critical race theory or the content of classrooms or policies about LGBTQ communities and how they can be represented in instructional materials around the curriculum and in schools,” Curran said. 

And while those policies are still around, Curran believes it is “not receiving quite the sort of narratives and attention that we saw over the previous years right before it.” 

“At least, in my perspective, I think over the past year, we've maybe seen a little bit less of that, just a bit of a calming of the waters in terms of political attention to education,” he added. 

While K-12 may not be receiving the same amount of attention as when schools were shut down during the pandemic, they have not got away free this past year.  

In the past year, transgender protections have varied by state, with California passing the first state law saying teachers do not need to tell parents if their child is going by a different name or pronoun unless they request a change to the official record.  

Other Republican-led states are requiring educators to tell parents if their student is identifying as transgender.

As states stand their ground on both sides of the political spectrum, Democrats and Republicans both saw decent bumps in satisfaction with the K-12 system. 

While the gap between satisfaction between the two parties is the largest ever seen, satisfaction for Republicans is up 8 percentage points at 33 percent and Democrats are up 9 percentage points at 53 percent, according to Gallup.

And differing views are emerging on which side should get the credit for the increases in satisfaction.  

“There was a lot of focus by Democrats on school” as a solution to inequality “and the messaging from those parties really was that schooling is something we do for ourselves, for our own children, to help them get ahead of the world. Well, that's a zero-sum game. Not everybody can get ahead. And if the task of public education is to remedy inequality, then all one needs to do is look around at our highly unequal society and see the ways in which schools are failing,” said Jack Schneider, director of the Center for Education Policy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. 

“We have finally begun to hear Democrats talking about education as something that advances the common good, as something that makes our community stronger and as something that is worth standing up and fighting for. And why are we hearing that? It's not because the Democrats suddenly saw the light on their own. It's because the Republican Party has taken this hard shift toward an extreme position that is deeply antagonistic to the very idea of public education,” he added.  

In recent years, the school choice movement has been making strides in multiple states with education savings accounts (ESAs), leading to criticisms that Republicans are abandoning public education. 

ESAs give parents looking at homeschooling or private school options a certain amount of money from the government each year.  

And some argue the expanded freedom in the K-12 system for parents to get their kids the education they want has improved sentiments.  

“I think there's a direct correlation between parent satisfaction and the increase of educational freedom and opportunity that has come with more states passing school choice programs, so that K-12 satisfaction rate is going to continue to increase the more that we empower parents to find the right educational environment for their child,” said Randan Steinhauser, a senior advisor for The Policy Circle, a nonprofit group focused on helping women become leaders in their communities.  

“So it's not surprising. And the more we remove regulations and burdens from families and allow them to explore various options, I think the higher that satisfaction rate will go up, which is a really good sign for the future of education,” she added.