Americans’ confidence in public schools approaches all-time low, Gallup poll finds

Only 28% of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in the country’s public schools, according to a new Gallup poll.

The number is a marked decrease from the amount of confidence Americans expressed in public schools during the early months of the pandemic, Gallup said in a news release. In 2020, 41% of people surveyed said they had a lot of confidence in the institutions.

The June 1-20 poll included 1,015 adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The level of confidence people have in America’s public schools seems somewhat divided along party lines, the poll found. Republicans were less likely to express confidence in public schools than Democrats were, Gallup said. Although both parties expressed more confidence than usual during the early months of the pandemic, only 14% of Republicans felt the same way in 2022, compared with 43% of Democrats.

That gap contrasts sharply with Gallup’s average results from year to year. Usually, the gap between the two parties is only around 7 points, although there was a 25-point gap last year. Before that, the highest recorded gap between political parties was 19 points in 2013, likely because of nationwide debates over Common Core educational standards, Gallup said.

According to Gallup, Republicans’ confidence in public schools had already been trending downward for decades and tends to be lower when a Democrat is president. But previous gaps in the group’s confidence between presidential administrations haven’t been quite as high.

That increased gap could be due to the increased politicization of public schools since the pandemic began, Gallup said. Republicans may express lower confidence in the institutions because they’re more likely to be dissatisfied with distance learning and mask requirements used during the pandemic. Their lowered confidence could also stem from opposition to school curriculum covering issues of race, gender and sexual orientation, Gallup said.

Republican lawmakers in numerous states have sponsored legislation that keeps those issues “at the forefront of party politics,” Gallup said. But when asked what the most important problem facing the country is, only 1% of Republicans pointed to education, according to Gallup.

Meanwhile, Democrats’ faith in public schools has hovered around its pandemic high level, Gallup said. In 2020, 48% of Democrats said they had high confidence in public schools, compared with 43% in 2022.

This story was originally published July 18, 2022 at 3:05 PM with the headline "Americans’ confidence in public schools approaches all-time low, Gallup poll finds."