Public satisfaction with K-12 schools nationally hit a record low this year, with about a third of Americans saying they are content with the quality of education students receive, according to a nationally representative survey conducted by Gallup, in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation.
Thirty-five percent of Americans say they are “completely” or “somewhat” satisfied with the nation’s school system, Gallup reported.
That’s an 8-point drop since last year. And it is 1 point below the previous record lows, which were recorded in 2000 and 2023. Gallup has been surveying the public on this question annually since 1999.
Meanwhile, nearly a quarter of respondents—24%—are “completely dissatisfied with the quality of the nation’s K-12 schools, while 38% are “somewhat dissatisfied.” To be sure, public satisfaction with K-12 schools has rarely risen above 50% in Gallup’s survey—hitting 53% in 2004 and 51% in 2019, which were all-time highs.
This year’s low satisfaction numbers seem to be at least in part due to Democrats and independents feeling less satisfied with K-12 schools since President Donald Trump regained the White House, said Megan Brenan, a senior editor at Gallup.
Democrats’ satisfaction with schools fell 12 points to 42% after Trump took office, and independents’ satisfaction is down to a new low of 34%.
National politics is clearly having a big impact on the public’s overall view of K-12 schools, experts say. “I think that’s what we’re looking at here,” Brenan said. Respondents’ “own partisanship is affecting the way that they answer the overall K-12 question.”
Twenty-nine percent of Republicans said they were satisfied with the nation’s schools, which is statistically similar to last year’s level of 31%. However, that’s a shift from 2017, the beginning of President Donald Trump’s first term, when Republicans’ levels of satisfaction with schools shot up to 45%, from 32% in 2016.
Why no bump for Republicans this time around? One possibility: The Trump administration has been largely negative about schools and has been cutting funding for them, Brenan suggested.
In open-ended responses in the Gallup survey, Democrats worried about how problems like lack of funding affected students’ educational experiences, Brenan added. Republicans, on the other hand, were more likely to worry that schools push a political agenda, she said.
Parents are largely content with their own child’s school
One potential bright spot in the survey for educators: Parents of K-12 students are largely content with their local schools, as has been the case for the more than a quarter-century that Gallup has surveyed on this topic.
About three-quarters of parents say they are either “completely” or “somewhat” pleased with the quality of education their oldest child is receiving, compared to 6% who are completely dissatisfied and 17% who are somewhat dissatisfied.
That is in line with Gallup’s results for the past 26 years. Over that time, an average of 76% of parents have said they are satisfied with their own child’s school.
Gallup included a new question on this survey, asking respondents how they thought schools were doing in preparing students for college and the workforce.
About 1 in 5 U.S. adults—21%—said schools are doing an “excellent” or “good” job getting students ready for jobs, while 33% said the same about preparing students for college.
Notably, younger adults, ages 18 to 29, were more likely to give higher ratings for college-and-career preparation than older adults, Brenan said.
“Those who have recently experienced K-12 education are more positive than those who are just observing it from the outside,” Brenan said.
