New Poll Finds Education Issues Were One of Parents’ Top Priorities When Voting in This Election Cycle

The 2024 election has wrapped up. In all of this, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that voting for our leaders is a privilege that was hard-won through centuries of struggle and advocacy, and it is a right we should be incredibly grateful for. Voting, and civic participation generally, is a freedom that has not always been available to everyone and still is not universal in all parts of the world.  

Beyond the presidential election, countless state specific ballot initiatives were voted upon in November. From an education perspective, Colorado, Kentucky, and Nebraska all had significant school choice measures on their respective ballots. For those interested in the outcomes of each election, my colleague Mike McShane broke down the election results and leaves a few key takeaways in his recent Forbes piece.  

Across the country, a new cadre of elected leaders are preparing to take office in January, and we are trying to take stock of what it all means for public policy. What issues are most important to Americans this election cycle? Are parents’ voting priorities in line with the general population? In partnership with Morning Consult, EdChoice surveyed a nationally representative sample of American adults 18 and older (N=2,253) from October 10-13, 2024. With additional sampling, we obtained responses from 1,295 parents of children currently in K–12 education.  

We included questions asking adults and school parents about their outlook on K–12 education, while also looking at questions pertaining to civic engagement activities, teacher pay, and priority issues in both federal and state elections. We encourage everyone to read the full report here.  

Voting Priorities  

We asked both the general population and school parents about their top three issues when voting in federal elections. Economic issues were top of mind for both the general population (75%) as well as school parents (67%). It is worth highlighting that election exit polling reinforced these findings, showing economic issues towards the top of the list for voters.  

Health care issues were the second most important for Americans (53%), followed by security issues (38%). Parents’ concerns deviated a bit from the general population, however. While health care issues were third most important in the minds of parents (48%), more than half of parents (56%) indicated that education issues (student learning, school funding, school choice) were on their mind when voting in federal elections. For context, education issues were the fifth most important issue on Americans’ minds when voting in federal elections (33%).  

Priorities for both groups when thinking about state elections were along similar lines, with one exception. Education issues were the third highest priority among Americans (37%), trailing only economic issues (68%) and health care issues (49%). For parents, the top three priorities for state elections were identical to that of federal elections. Economic issues held the top spot for parents (71%), followed by education issues (58%) and health care issues (46%).  

Teenagers held very similar viewpoints to school parents according to our recently released survey of teens with economic issues (56%) at the top, followed by health care issues (50%) and education issues (49%). 

Direction of K–12 Education  

Parents’ skepticism towards the direction of K–12 education could help explain their prioritization of education issues in November. Only one-third of parents feel that K–12 education is on the right track nationwide, a slight decrease from last month. Parents are slightly more optimistic about the direction of K–12 education in their state (42%), while half of parents feel their local school district is on course. Slightly over half of parents say that K–12 education is on the wrong track, up slightly from last month.  

Americans are, by margin, less optimistic than school parents when thinking about the direction of K–12 education. While more than one-third of the general population believes that education locally (36%) and statewide (34%) is going in the right direction, only 25% of Americans are feeling positive about K–12 education nationwide.  

Civic Engagement 

We asked parents and the general population about civic engagement activities related to K–12 education. When asked about if they have attended at least one local school board meeting in the past 12 months, 25% of school parents said they had compared to only 8% of Americans who said the same. Thinking about whether they have voted in a local school board election in the past 12 months, 20% of school parents said yes while 13% of Americans said the same. Perhaps unsurprisingly, school parents were much more likely than the general population to have contacted a state public official (+6 points) or a local public official (+10 points) about issues relating to K–12 education in the past 12 months. That said, less than one in five parents reported having contacted a state or local public official about issues related to K–12 education in the past 12 months.  

Teacher Pay 

For the first time in more than a year, we asked Americans and school parents about their opinions on teacher salaries in their state. More than two-thirds of Americans (71%) and school parents (69%) feel that teacher salaries in their state should increase. Roughly one-fourth of Americans (24%) and school parents (27%) feel that teacher salaries in their state should stay about the same. Only about 5% of both Americans and school parents feel that teacher salaries in their state should decrease. Teachers, unsurprisingly, are very strong in their belief that teacher salaries should increase (92%) when we posed this question to them in spring 2024 survey of teachers.