A recent report from education reform organization EdChoice revealed that Americans are more dissatisfied with the state of public education now than they have been at any point in the past ten years.
Although parents are, by comparison, more optimistic, their satisfaction has still dipped several percentage points from prior years.
This report also found that two forms of school choice — education savings accounts (ESAs) and school vouchers — have significant support from both parents and members of the general public.
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For both of these policies, support increased drastically when a brief explanation of the program was provided to survey respondents.
It was also revealed that there is a significant disconnect between the type of school parents would ideally like to send their children to and where they are actually enrolled.
Although only 44 percent of parents wish to send their children to their local public school, nearly double that — 79 percent — have actually done so.
In addition to this, the percentage of parents who would like to send their children to private school is more than three times higher than the percentage that actually does.
The share of those interested in home schooling their children is twice as large as those that do so in reality.
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Desire to enroll in a public charter school is only slightly higher than actual charter school enrollment.
Americans appear to be more pessimistic about the state of education now than they have been at any point in the past eleven years.
70 percent of survey respondents said that they feel K-12 education is on the wrong track. Just two years ago, pessimism was at its lowest level, with just 53 percent of respondents expressing dissatisfaction.
Parents are significantly more optimistic, however, as only 56 percent said that K-12 education is currently on the wrong track.
School vouchers received substantial support in this survey, with 67 percent of respondents — and 75 percent of parents — favoring the policy after receiving an explanation.
EdChoice defines school vouchers in their survey as a system that “allows parents the option of sending their child to the school of their choice, whether that school is public or private, including both religious and non-religious schools.”
“If this policy were adopted, tax dollars currently allocated to a school district would be allocated to parents in the form of a ‘school voucher’ to pay partial or full tuition for the child’s school,” they wrote.
Support dipped to 55 percent among parents — and 48 percent in general — when a description was not provided. 25 percent of respondents indicated that they had not previously heard of school vouchers.
When given an explanation, 75 percent of survey respondents also expressed support for ESAs, with support rising to 83 percent among parents of school age children.
For the purposes of this survey, ESAs were defined as “government-authorized savings account[s] with restricted, but multiple uses for educational purposes.”
“Parents can then use these funds to pay for: school tuition; tutoring; online education programs; therapies for students with special needs; textbooks or other instructional materials; or save for future college expenses,” EdChoice wrote.
Without this explanation, support drops to 51 percent for respondents overall and to 60 for parents of school-aged children. 31 percent of those who took this survey indicated that they had never before heard of ESAs.
This past summer, Democrat lawmakers in Maine defeated a bill along party lines that would have expanded school choice in the state by establishing an ESA program.
[RELATED: School Choice Bill Establishing Empowerment Scholarship Accounts Defeated in Legislature]
Sen. Jim Libby (R-Cumberland), the bill’s sponsor, said LD 1798 would help inject some much needed competition into Maine’s education system.
“The idea behind this bill is that we cannot improve Maine schools until we subject them to competition. Providing parents with school choice will quickly hone schools and make them far more customer friendly,” he said.
According to a RealClear Opinion Research poll from 2022, school choice in general enjoys broad, bipartisan support with 68 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of Republicans, and 67 percent of Independents expressing support for school choice measures that would allow parents to “use the tax dollars designated for their child’s education to send their child to the public or private school which best serves their needs.”
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="29416 https://www.themainewire.com/?p=29416">6 Comments
70% of Americans Feel K-12 Education on the Wrong Track: New EdChoice Report
Ya think?
only 70% , must be Calif. dragging down that number
mark violette– It is the 30% getting the free things. The number of Demo voters
Pay teachers hourly not salary. Make em work12 months a year just like a real job.
thanks
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