The Top 10 Findings from EdChoice’s 2023 Schooling in America Survey Series
In 2023, EdChoice marks the 11th year of the Schooling in America (SIA) survey, our annual national poll of the general public and parents of school-age children.
While many American families are starting their back-to-school shopping, what issues are really top of mind for parents as they prepare their children for the upcoming school year?
According to the latest edition of the Schooling in America survey, parents are most concerned with a variety of matters related to school safety, class size, flexibility in their child’s educational options, schooling spending, and much more.
The annual survey conducted by Braun Research and commissioned by EdChoice provides an opportunity to better understand Americans’ perspectives on K-12 education in our country. Over the course of the survey’s 11-year history, surveyors have asked a set of repeat questions regarding the direction of K-12 education, parents’ satisfaction with their child’s schooling experience, and opinions toward education reform. A set of new, timely questions are also included each year, to paint a more comprehensive picture of the American experience in K-12 education. This year, researchers asked questions to gauge Americans’ views on school safety, school switching, class size, school size, and more.
We (with our partners Braun Research) fielded our yearly survey from April 18 to May 2. We obtained nationally representative samples of American adults (N=1,224) and current school parents (N=1,504).
A note before we continue — those who follow our polling work may wonder how SIA differs from the EdChoice Public Opinion Tracker, our monthly polling report. Questions in our monthly tracking poll tend to vary a little more. SIA’s scope changes less so we can maintain trends established more than a decade ago in many instances. Furthermore, our monthly public opinion reports with Morning Consult uses a single mode (online), while SIA uses a mixed-methods approach (both online and phone). Having two surveys with slightly differing methodologies conducted by different research partners allows us to have a more holistic approach to common topics and questions found in both surveys.
After you are done reading, we encourage you to browse through our Schooling in America Survey Dashboard for an interactive experience with our charts and data – which are also easy to download.
Here are the top 10 takeaways from the 2023 Schooling in America Survey:
1. Parents and the general public are more pessimistic about the direction of K-12 education compared to last year. The share of people who think K-12 education is on the wrong track rose nine percentage points from 2022 to 2023, while the share of people who think K-12 education is heading in the right direction decreased 7 percentage points. Overall, 70 percent of Americans believe K-12 education is on the wrong track, while only 27 percent of Americans believe it is heading in the right direction. The majority of parents also feel K-12 education is on the wrong track (56%), up 4 points from 2022. Additionally, the percentage of parents who feel optimistic about the direction of K-12 education fell 5 points, from 48 percent to 43 percent. Public district school parents are the most pessimistic about the direction of K-12 education, while private school parents indicate the most optimism.
2. Private school parents and homeschool parents are most likely to say they are “very satisfied” with their child’s schooling experience. Since we began asking this question in 2018, private school parents have been the most likely to say they are “very” satisfied with their child’s schooling experience. This year, however, private school parents share the top spot with homeschooling parents, with 41 percent of both groups saying they are “very” satisfied. Overall satisfaction among parents, regardless of the type of school, is high. Nearly three in four private school, charter school, and homeschool parents are “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with their child’s schooling experience. Even the majority of public district school parents (57%), who are consistently the least satisfied of the parent groups, are at least somewhat satisfied with their child’s schooling experience.
We also ask parents to grade their local schools. Private school parents are consistently the most likely to give their local private school an A or B grade. This trend held strong in 2023, with 71 percent of private school parents giving their local private school an A or B grade. The majority of charter and public school parents also graded their local schools with an A or B grade at 58 percent and 53 percent, respectively.
We also ask parents to grade their local schools. Private school parents are consistently the most likely to give their local private school an A or B grade. This trend held strong in 2023, with 71 percent of private school parents giving their local private school an A or B grade. The majority of charter and public school parents also graded their local schools with an A or B grade at 58 percent and 53 percent, respectively.
3. On average, parents’ estimates of their child’s school and class size appears to differ from their preferences. First, parents were asked to estimate their child’s school size. Although responses varied across a range of number options, the most popular answer was anywhere between 251-500 students (25%). When asked about their ideal school size, nearly two-thirds of parents expressed preference for elementary schools and middle schools to be between 100-500 students (65% for both). When it came to high schools, however, parents leaned toward larger school sizes. Nearly two-thirds of parents (64%) said they prefer their child’s high school to be at least 500 students. The most frequent answer selected by 38 percent of parents, was for their child’s high school size to be more than 1,000 students.
Parents are much more likely to want their child’s class size to be less than 20 students. We started by asking parents to estimate their child’s class size. Roughly half of parents estimated their child’s class to be at least 20 students. Parents were most likely to estimate their child’s class size to be between 21-25 students (National median class size is roughly 19 students, per NCES). However, parents’ estimation of their child’s class size does not match up with their preferred class size. When asked about their preferred elementary school class size, 80 percent of parents prefer elementary school class size to be between 10-20 students. This preference remained consistent when parents were questioned about their ideal class sizes for middle and high school as well, although at a slightly lower rate compared to elementary school. Seven in ten parents prefer middle school class sizes to be between 10-20 students, while only 57 percent of parents say their ideal high school class size is between 10-20 students.
4. Parents choose schools for a variety of different reasons. We asked parents to rank the three factors contributing most to their decision on what type of school they chose for their child. Parents were much more likely, compared to years prior, to prioritize safety when choosing a school. Safety grew in importance for public school, charter, and homeschool parents in 2023. Both homeschool parents (47%) and public charter school parents (35%) were most likely to name safety as their top factor in school selection. A safe environment was the third and fourth most desired quality for private school parents and public district school parents, respectively. Overall, there was a fairly broad distribution of top factors among parents. Private school parents were most likely to name morals/character/values instruction (32%) and academic quality (30%) in their top three. Public district school parents, on the other hand, were most likely to cite location for convenience (37%) and socialization (32%) as top reasons for selecting a public district school for their child. Regardless of the type of school parents sent their children to, fewer parents prioritized academic quality compared to last year.
5. Safety is on parents’ minds. Roughly half of parents are either “extremely” or “very” concerned about the possibility of a violent intruder entering their child’s school. For comparison, only 21 percent of parents are either “not very” or “not at all” concerned. Broken out by schooling sector, charter (65%) and private school parents (58%) show the most concern about the possibility of a violent intruder entering their child’s school. Public district school parents (46%) were less likely than the average parent to be “extremely” or “very” concerned.
We also asked parents about the safety measures employed at their child’s school. They indicated locked doors (56%) and safety training for teachers and staff (51%) were the most reported procedures. Conversely, safety programs for students (43%) and emails about safety/preparedness (37%) were the least-cited safety measures from parents.
6. Americans are much less likely to say their state’s funding is “low too” when shown a publicly recorded funding statistic. We posed a split-sample question to respondents about public school funding in their state. We designed two statements and randomized which one a respondent would see: one included the average per-pupil expenditure in the respondent’s state, while the other did not include any information about actual public school funding. More than half of the respondents who did not see the statistic (58%) believed public school funding in their state is “too low”. When a funding statistic was included in the question, the share of respondents saying funding is “too low” dropped 15 points to 43 percent. Additionally, only 13 percent of respondents who saw no statistic said public school funding in their state is “too high.” Introducing a funding statistic into the question boosted the share of respondents saying public school funding is “too high” in their state by 7 points, up to 20 percent. This trend between the two groups has remained consistent for 11 years – every year of the Schooling in America survey.
7. About one-third of parents indicate their child has switched schools. We asked parents the following question: “Besides moving from elementary school to middle school or middle school to high school, has your child ever switched from one school to another?” More than one-third of parents (34%) said their child has switched schools at some point. We asked this group of parents about the problems at their child’s former school, prior to switching. Excessive stress or anxiety, along with bullying, were the two biggest problems cited by parents with children who switched schools. Academic needs not being met and bad peer groups were the next most prevalent problems these children faced at their former school.
8. The majority of Americans support school choice. Parents are even more supportive of school choice, with 67 percent of parents indicating they favor school choice. Opposition towards school choice remained stable and low again in 2023. In fact, for both Americans and school parents, more people report having never heard of school choice than being opposed to it.
Looking at the choice policies themselves, support from the general public remained steady for each of the policies. That said, roughly two-thirds of Americans favor school vouchers (67%), tax-credit scholarships (TCSs, 66%), and charter schools (65%). The most-supported school choice policy is ESAs, with three-fourths of Americans (75%) supporting the policy. Parents’ support of choice policies remains even stronger than that of the American public, with roughly three-fourths of Americans supporting school vouchers, tax-credit scholarships, and charter schools. As observed with the general public, parents’ support for ESAs is notably higher, increasing slightly in 2023 to 83 percent.
9. ESAs continue to be the most popular educational choice policy. Support for Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) continues to be robust among both the general public and school parents. Three-in-four (75%) Americans support ESAs, while an even higher proportion (83%) of school parents are supportive of the policy. Support is relatively unchanged from 2022. Opposition towards ESAs also remained stable, with roughly one-fifth (21%) of the public and parents opposing ESAs. Interestingly, despite the strong support for ESAs, they remain the least familiar educational choice policy among the public. Nearly one-third of Americans say they’ve never heard of ESAs (31%), while only 25 percent and 11 percent of Americans say they have never heard of school vouchers and charter schools, respectively. This is significant considering how immense the effect of information is on ESA support. While support for ESAs among the public and school parents is strong even without a description of ESAs being provided, support increases significantly when the policy is described. Public support for ESAs increases 24 points (51% to 75%) when provided a description, while support increased 23 points (60% to 83%) among current school parents.
Americans are much more likely to favor universal ESAs than needs-based ESAs. Since 2015, we have asked a split-sample question where respondents are randomly shown one of two prompts: one describing universal ESAs and one describing needs-based ESAs. Each year, the group shown a prompt about universal ESAs has been significantly more likely to indicate agreement than the group shown a prompt about targeted ESAs. That trend held true in 2023, with 76 percent of Americans supporting universal ESAs, while 54 percent of Americans preferred needs-based ESAs.
10. Less than half of public district school parents say their child’s school effectively handles issues such as bullying, violent behaviors, guns, and mental health. Overall, roughly half of parents feel their child’s schools are handling the four issues “extremely” or “very” well. Parents are most optimistic about schools’ handling of guns (65%) and violent behaviors (59%). Private school parents, followed closely behind by charter school parents, were most optimistic about their child’s schools’ handling of the four issues. Public district school parents were consistently more negative than the average parent about how their child’s school handles guns (47%), violent behaviors (41%), mental health (39%), and bullying (36%).
We also included a question to expand on the problems occurring within schools. More than half of parents say physical conflicts (57%) are a “serious” or “moderate” problem at their child’s school. E-cigarette use among students and student absenteeism followed closely behind, with 52 percent and 50 percent of parents labeling each as a “serious” or “moderate” problem at their child’s school.
See all of the new interactive charts, the full report, questionnaire and toplines, methodology and data sources on our Schooling in America Polling Dashboard
