POLL: Most Americans Are Dissatisfied With K-12 Education

POLL: Most Americans Are Dissatisfied With K-12 Education

Reagan Reese on September 2, 2022

Most Americans are unhappy with the current K-12 education system, according to a poll released Thursday.

About one in four Americans reported being “completely dissatisfied” with education in America, while 32% are “somewhat dissatisfied,” according to a Gallup poll. Only 9% said they were “completely satisfied” with the education system.

The leading reason for being unsatisfied with the education system was curriculum concerns, specifically “poor/outdated curriculum,” “quality of education is poor/outranked by other countries” and “lack of teaching basics/reading/writing/arithmetic,” the poll showed. About 28% of Americans were mainly concerned with poor resources in schools, with 17% having “political concerns” regarding the classroom.

Curriculum concerns are bipartisan with 58% of Republicans and 52% Democrats stating it as their main concern, the poll stated. Republicans’ trust in the K-12 education has dropped 19% since 2020.

Despite this, parents are satisfied with their oldest child’s education, as 80% said they are “completely or somewhat satisfied” with their education, the poll stated. Just 6% said they were “completely dissatisfied.”

In 2019, 51% of Americans were satisfied with the education system, a near-record high for the Gallup poll.

Gallup randomly surveyed 1,006 adults over the age of 18 from all 50 states, with a 4% margin of error and 95% confidence level. Of those surveyed, 206 had children in the K-12 education system.

Americans’ confidence in the K-12 education system is also lacking, with 28% of Americans reporting they had “a great deal or quite a lot of confidence” in the system, a July Gallup poll showed.

Gallup did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.