Education Week journalists have consistently heard anecdotes about problems with student behavior and engagement, so for the 2026 The State of Teaching survey, we crafted a few questions about how educators’ perceptions of those conditions have changed.
Across the states, a minority of teachers thought student behavior had stayed the same or improved over the past year; in fact, no state broke the 50 percent mark, and in most states just around a third of teachers agreed.
Although there was some state variation, a majority of teachers favored several approaches to improve student behavior: smaller classes, limiting parent interference in discipline, limiting students’ access to phones, and instruction for parents on teaching children how to behave in ways that are appropriate for school.
See more state-by-state data on teachers from the report
About the survey that powers these results
For the state-by-state results, a total of 5,802 teachers responded to a nationally representative online survey designed by the EdWeek Research Center, which included a total of 30 questions about the profession.
Results can be tracked over time and reported by subgroup—such as locale or years of teaching experience.
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