Most Americans Say Public Education Is Headed in Wrong Direction: Survey

Students walk to board a school bus in Manhattan on Jan. 15, 2013. Mario Tama/Getty Images

More than half of Americans believe that public education is on the wrong path. A newly published survey reveals a decline in public trust in the K–12 education system.

In a Pew Research Center survey released on April 4, 51 percent of U.S. adults said they believe that the nation’s public K–12 education system is on the wrong track. A significantly lower percentage (16 percent) said they believe it’s going in the right direction, and about 32 percent expressed uncertainty on the matter. The remainder didn’t answer.

The survey shows that opinions on public education differ based on political affiliation, with more Republicans than Democrats saying that the public education system is headed in the wrong direction. About two-thirds (65 percent) of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents hold this belief, while 40 percent of Democrats and Democratic leaners have the same view.

Only 10 percent of Republicans said the system is going in the right direction, compared with 23 percent of Democrats.

Major Reasons

In particular, teachers themselves have a significantly unfavorable view of the public K–12 education system, according to another Pew Research Center survey. An overwhelming majority of teachers (82 percent) said they believe that the general condition of U.S. public education has deteriorated over the past five years. Only 5 percent said it has improved, and 11 percent said that there has been no significant change either way. The remaining 2 percent said they were unsure or didn’t answer.

The teachers blame the political climate (60 percent), the COVID-19 pandemic (57 percent), and changes in funding (46 percent) for the worsening public education system in the United States.

Among U.S. adults who said the system is headed in the wrong direction, 69 percent said it’s because public schools do not spend enough time on core academic subjects, such as reading, math, science, and social studies. Among Republicans, this opinion is held by 82 percent, while 45 percent of Democrats have the same view.

One factor for the declining quality of public education is teachers’ injecting their personal political and social views into the classroom, according to 54 percent of U.S. adults in the survey. The same 82 percent of Republicans share this view, while 12 percent of Democrats hold this belief.

A vast majority of Democrats (78 percent) said that a lack of school funding contributes to the diminishing quality of public education, while 33 percent of Republicans said the same. Democrats (46 percent) also hold the view that parents have great influence on school curriculum, compared with 13 percent of Republicans.

A Call to Abolish the Department of Education

In recent years, several Republicans have wanted to shut down the Department of Education. They argue that public schools indoctrinate rather than provide real education to the students.

During the 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference, former President Donald Trump expressed this view, saying: “Across the country, we need to implement strict prohibitions on teaching inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material to America’s schoolchildren in any form whatsoever. And if federal bureaucrats are going to push this radicalism, we should abolish the Department of Education.”

“We’re going to end education coming out of Washington, D.C. We’re going to close it up—all those buildings all over the place and people that, in many cases, hate our children. We’re going to send it all back to the states,” the former president said in his campaign video.

In last year’s 2024 GOP presidential debates, many candidates said they wanted to shut down the education department, including tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

“Let’s shut down the head of the snake: the Department of Education. Take that $80 billion [and] put it in the hands of parents across this country. This is the civil rights issue of our time,” Mr. Ramaswamy said at the debate.

Additionally, former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in 2022 voiced the same opinion. “I personally think the Department of Education should not exist,” she said during an event in Florida, according to the Florida Phoenix.

In 2021, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) introduced legislation to terminate the department. “Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” Mr. Massie said.

“Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.”