A Mixed Bag: Teachers’ Perspectives on the Current State of K–12 Education

To gauge the current perspectives and opinions of teachers, EdChoice commissioned and developed a nationally representative survey conducted by Morning Consult. It surveyed K–12 educators (N=1,031) from September 20– 25, 2024.  

In this wave of our teacher survey, we asked educators for their opinions on a range of topics including levels of trust in decision making around K–12 education; motivations for becoming a teacher; accountability and judging school performance; and school choice. Furthermore, we asked new questions about teacher absenteeism as well as how they measure student success in a given school year.  

We encourage everyone to read the full report, but here are the key findings: 

Teachers’ Opinions on Overall K–12 Education Landscape 

Teacher optimism rebounds from all-time low levels

Since we first asked teachers how they feel about the direction of K–12 education in March 2020, teacher positivity towards education has gradually declined. Optimism hit rock bottom in our spring survey earlier this year. In April 2024, only 39% of teachers said that education was going in the right direction in their local school districts. A dismal 26% said education is going well at the state level, falling to 19% at the national level.  

However, last month, teachers’ views on education showed signs of improvement. Half of teachers (49%) think education is going in the right direction at the local level, a 10-point increase since April 2024. A full 35% of teachers feel positively about education at the state level (+9 points), and 25% feel positively about national K–12 education (+6 points). It’s notable that this change lines up with a similar reversal in parent attitudes towards the direction of education.  

We also asked teachers if they would recommend the teaching profession to a friend or family member. Similarly, we observed a boost in teachers who would recommend the teaching profession. In the spring, only 15% of teachers would recommend the teaching, the lowest level we had seen since we first asked the question in 2020. Last month, the percentage of teachers who would recommend the teaching profession rose 6 points to 21%.

Perhaps this more optimistic outlook is linked to improved student progress this school year. Teachers believe that students are progressing better academically, emotionally, and socially compared to this time last year. About one-fourth of teachers say that their students are progressing very well in the areas of academic learning (28%), emotional development (23%), and social development (24%). This reflects a six to seven point increase in each category since September 2023.

Teachers self-report missing very few days of school

Student absenteeism has deservedly garnered a lot of attention over the past year, but what about absenteeism among teachers? For the first time, we asked teachers how many whole days of school they missed in the previous school year. Nearly three in four (70%) teachers reported missing less than five days of school last year, while 20% of teachers said they missed between six and10 days. Only 7% of teachers reported missing more than 10 days of school in the previous school year. Interestingly, when asked about their colleagues, nearly half (46%) of teachers said their colleagues missed more than five days of school last year.

We dove a little deeper, asking teachers about the reasons why they were absent from school. Predictably, illness (67%) and appointments (52%) were the most cited reasons. We also observed more concerning themes like burnout (18%) and concern for their safety at school (2%) appear among the reasons teachers were absent from school last year.

Teachers’ opinions on public school funding

The majority of teachers (72%) think their state’s public school funding is too low, even when given a publicly reported statistic about school funding (64%). For comparison, more than half of school parents (59%) feel that public school funding is too low without being shown a publicly recorded statistic. When shown data on the subject, only 39% of school parents feel that funding is too low.

Teachers’ feelings towards issues of school safety

Overall, the majority of teachers do not think their school handles issues of safety very well. This includes mental health (36%), guns (44%), bullying (38%), and violent behaviors (39%). Once again, there’s a disparity between public and private school teachers, with private school teachers feeling significantly more positive. Teachers’ concern about violent intruders entering their school has risen slightly (38%, +4 points) since the spring. They are a little more concerned about this issue than teens.

Teachers’ motivations for joining profession are coming to fruition

When asked about their primary motivation for becoming a teacher, 43% of teachers noted their passion for working with children and young people. This was by far the most popular attitude when thinking about their reason for teaching. The next most popular sentiment among teachers was the goal of making a positive impact on society (21%). Only roughly one in 10 teachers reported having been inspired by a former teacher in their own education (13%), a love for a specific subject (10%), and to have a fulfilling career (10%) as their main motivation for entering the teaching field.

We followed up on this and asked teachers if their current teaching career aligns with their motivations for becoming a teacher. As it turns out, 80% of teachers feel as though their current teaching career is aligned with the reasons they became teachers in the first place. Private school teachers (84%) are slightly more likely than district school teachers (79%) to agree with the statement.

Accountability and Trust

Teachers’ feelings on issues of accountability

For the first time, we asked teachers about their opinions on government’s influence on accountability systems within K–12 education. Overwhelmingly, 81% of teachers at least somewhat agreed with the notion that government has a role to play in the accountability systems in K–12 education. Broken out by sector, there was very little difference in the opinions of private school and district school teachers. We also asked the teachers who agreed that government has a role to play about which level of government should have the most influence on accountability in K–12 education. Over half (52%) signaled that local government should have the most influence on accountability in K–12 education, while 32% felt state government should have the most influence.

Sticking on the topic of accountability, we gauged teachers’ opinions on what exactly schools should be held accountable for. The majority of teachers felt schools are largely accountable for matters such as student academic learning (79%) and student engagement (70%). However, teachers were far less willing to say schools should be held accountable for parent engagement (43%) and parent satisfaction (35%).

Teachers and parents *mostly* agree on who to trust for decision making in K–12 education

The debate over who should be making decisions in the classroom continues on. An overwhelming 96% of teachers trust themselves and their fellow teachers to make good decisions about education. This is followed by local-level supervisors like principals (81%) and school district superintendents (61%). A more lukewarm majority of teachers trust parents (57%) to make good decisions on education. Across the board, teachers are least trusting of government officials, including state departments of education (54%), local school boards (53%), and the U.S. Department of Education (51%). Only 37% of teachers trust state legislatures or governors to make good decisions about education.

Teachers’ opinions on these questions of trust align closely with how parents feel. Like teachers, school parents place the most trust in teachers (88%) and the least trust in states legislatures/governors (56%). The only point of contention appeared when discussing parents. While 87% of parents trust themselves to make good decisions about K–12 education, only 57% of teachers feel that parents are trustworthy when it comes to education related decisions.

Measuring student success and school performance

We asked teachers how they measure if a student has a successful school year. Communication and observation were the main tools, according to teachers. Teachers were most likely to say their communication with the student (63%) or their observations of the student’s behavior (50%) were most important, followed by communication with the student’s parents (43%), observing the student’s attitude towards school (43%), and grades (41%). Standardized test scores (15%) were the least selected measure of success by teachers.

While a more quantitative measure like academic progress was not high on the list for teachers when measuring student success, teachers certainly believe that is the case when judging a school’s performance. The majority of teachers pointed to average student academic progress during the school year (62%), as well as student academic progress from year to year (61%) as indicative measures of school performance. Interestingly, only 25% of teachers felt that student satisfaction should be used to judge school performance. Even less popular was parent satisfaction, selected by only 12% of teachers.

Teacher Attitude Towards School Choice and Other Education Policies

Teachers support universal education savings accounts (ESAs)

Teachers’ support for Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) rose four points from a year ago to 73%. Support for ESAs among private school teachers is higher (82%), while support among district school teachers is roughly level with that of teachers on average (72%). Teachers’ support for ESAs has held steady at around 70% since we first posed this question in March of 2020. Furthermore, ESAs are the most popular school choice policy, by a large margin, among teachers. Support for other educational choice policies is as follows:

• Open enrollment (63%)
• Charter schools (50%)
• Vouchers (41%)

When asked whether ESAs should be made available to all families, regardless of income, 69% of teachers were supportive of the idea of universal ESAs. Additionally, roughly one in three teachers strongly agree with the idea of universal ESAs. On the other hand, 43% of teachers agree that ESAs should only be available to families based on financial need. Teachers’ opposition to needs-based ESAs was much higher (32%) than to that of universal ESAs (19%).

Teachers support the idea of “Teacher Savings Accounts”

Around this time in 2022, we posed the idea of “Teacher Savings Accounts” to teachers. We defined TSAs as “a government-authorized savings account with restricted, but multiple uses for classroom and professional development purposes. Teachers can then use these funds to pay for: classroom supplies, books/downloads, lesson plans, instructional materials, computer hardware/software or other equipment, or additional training through meetings, conferences, or webinars. Some amount can be saved for future school-year expenses.” When we first asked teachers about their feelings towards TSAs in 2022, roughly 85% of teachers were supportive. This time around, support levels have remained high, at 83%. Private school teachers are even more supportive of TSAs, at 90%. District school teachers, while less supportive than private school teachers, are still far more likely to favor TSAs than to oppose them (82%).

But those are just the highlights, be sure to check out the full report. The demographic crosstabs and full survey instrument are available here.