Views of K-12 education improving from record low: Gallup

Americans’ views of the K-12 education system improved from last year’s record low opinion of the institution, according to a new poll from Gallup. 

Satisfaction with K-12 is up 7 percentage points, going from 36 percent in 2023 to 43 percent in 2024.  

Still, 55 percent say they are completely or somewhat dissatisfied with K-12 education. Only 9 percent are completely satisfied. The average trend over the years sits at around 45 percent completely or somewhat satisfied, according to Gallup.

“The recent increase in satisfaction on this measure is seen across most major demographic subgroups, including Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents,” Gallup said.  

For Republicans, satisfaction is up eight percentage points from last year at 33 percent and Democrats are up nine percentage points at 53 percent. The gap between the two parties is the largest ever seen by Gallup. 

“As has consistently been the case over the past 25 years, parents of school-aged children are much more likely to express satisfaction with the quality of their own child’s education than the U.S. education system overall,” Gallup reported.  

The question about safety at school matched a recent high in 2022 at 44 percent concerned about their student's wellbeing in school, which has steadily gone up over the years due to school shootings.  

The poll was conducted between Aug. 1 and Aug. 20 among 1,015 U.S. adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.