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The general public and school parents are more likely to be pessimistic about the direction of K–12 education in the country, but positive sentiment has grown in recent years.
About two out of five American adults believe K–12 education is heading in the right direction—an 18-point increase since 2016. Just over half say K–12 is on the wrong track—a 10-point decrease since fall 2020.
Once informed, parents’ support for school choice goes up across the board.
Education savings accounts (ESAs) are a good example. An initial baseline question found 56 percent of school parents said they favored ESAs. A follow-up question gave more information on how an ESA operates, and parents’ support increased 28 points to 84 percent. This same information effect happened when we asked about public charter schools and school vouchers.
Safety and school quality are most important to private, charter and homeschooling parents, while public district school parents care most about proximity and socialization.
Priorities vary across different parent groups of schoolers. Parents’ top reasons for choosing their public district school are proximity (42%), socialization (38%) or school assignment (34%). Private school parents primarily said they made their choice because of academic reputation (40%) or safe environment (37%). Public charter school parents also signaled highest importance to academic reputation (35%) or safe environment (32%). Homeschoolers’ priorities are to have a safe environment (54%) and individual/one-on-one attention (43%).
Most parents aren’t accessing the schooling options they’d truly prefer for their kids.
Historically, more than four-fifths of students have attended a public district school, but only about 40 percent of current school parents say that would be their first choice. When told to share their schooling preferences if “financial costs and transportation” weren’t hurdles, we detected an elevated preference for private schools.