New Polling Reveals Parents Trust Teachers on Education More Than State Legislatures
As we inch closer to the November elections, one of the important issues that voters have on their mind is education. Parents consider whether their children’s schooling is going well and who should be held accountable for making decisions about K–12 education.
In partnership with Morning Consult, EdChoice surveyed a nationally representative sample of American adults 18 and older (N = 2,252) from Sept. 12–15, 2024. With additional sampling, we obtained responses from 1,278 parents of children currently in K–12 education.
What makes for a successful school year is subjective, and there’s continual conversation on the best metric for measuring progress. That said, it’s clear that parents are most likely to put stock in communicating with their child (48%) and teachers (48%). A little over a third of parents say that measures like report cards (35%) and grades on specific assignments (34%) are important to gauging a successful school year. Parents are least likely to think that standardized test scores (19%) are important for measuring success at school.
On the other hand, our recent Schooling in America survey found that parents do think standardized tests are an important accountability measure, especially for teachers (67%), schools (65%), and school districts (65%). Perhaps this discrepancy reflects a difference in how parents think about a successful school year for their own child, versus accountability measures for schools in general.
Another aspect of accountability is who parents trust to make good decisions about K–12 education. By far, school parents place the most trust in themselves (87%) and teachers (88%). Governmental institutions like the U.S. Department of Education (69%), state departments of education (69%), and local school boards (68%) are less favored, though still seen as trustworthy by most parents. Parents trust states legislatures and governors (56%) the least to make decisions about education. It is worth considering the significant gap in trust between states legislatures/governors and other types of political decision-makers (both federal and local) when it comes to education. Overall, parents seem to want the state to play less of a role in their kids’ education compared to teachers and parents.
To put these questions of trust in perspective, parents generally feel most positively about the direction of education in their local schools. They feel less optimistic about education at the state and national level. This pattern held true in September, with about half of parents (49%) saying that education is on the wrong track across the country. A smaller but significant portion of parents say that education is on the wrong track at the state (42%) and local (36%) level.
Elections draw out big questions about education policy even further. For all voters, and especially school parents, going to the polls means weighing who they trust to make decisions about schools. Economic issues are the top concern for both school parents (77%) and adults (70%) casting their vote in federal elections. Education issues are the next most important for school parents (55%), while it’s a distant sixth priority (34%) for all adults.
However, state elections are a slightly different story. Education issues are more important for both parents (58%) and adults (39%) in state elections. This shift makes education the third most important state election issue for American adults, trailing only economic and health care issues. Perhaps voters view education as an area more relevant to state level politics, or perhaps they feel more need to address how state legislatures are currently dealing with education issues.
Putting these results together, we can glean that parents may not be entirely satisfied with how their state legislatures and governors have been making decisions on education. This may affect their voting in November, since K–12 education is a top voting issue in state elections for both adults and school parents.
Visit the EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker site to access past reports, crosstabs, questionnaires, and our national and state dashboards. All are updated monthly. We also provide a more in-depth description of our research and survey methods.
Our K–12 education polls archive is updated on a rolling basis, roughly a few times each month. Please don’t hesitate to let us know if we are missing any surveys, or if there are accidental errors.
