Poll Shows Parent Satisfaction with K-12 Education Take a Massive Hit - They Should Have School Choice

As school begins to start up again, one inconvenient fact has become increasingly evident — parents are fed up with the education system.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the lives of families as some schools implement controversial learn-from-home strategies that many K-12 parents stand in stark opposition to.

A recent Gallup poll revealed that parent satisfaction with their children’s education is plummeting.

The poll is based on telephone interviews conducted from July 30 to August 12 with a random selection of 1,031 adults living in all 50 U.S. states. It had a 4-percentage point margin of error and a confidence level of 95 percent.

Last year, parent satisfaction hit a 20-year high of 82 percent.

Since then, it has dropped 10 points.

The majority of parents, 72 percent, are still satisfied with their children’s education, but that doesn’t make the drop any less significant.

Along with that drop comes a five-point increase (from 5 percent to 10 percent) of parents declaring their intentions to home school their children this year and a 3 point increase (2 percent to 5 percent) of parents planning to send their children to a charter school.

The response of many public schools and public school teachers to COVID-19 has highlighted the many faults that lie within the public school system, and this polling shows that parents are waking up.

In his recently released second-term agenda, President Donald Trump suggested the perfect solution to fix many of these problems — school choice. 

The test scores of children attending public schools have stagnated over the past 60 years despite the fact that funding per student has increased by $10,000 in that same time.

This is because public schools have a monopoly on the education of children within their district.

Instead of caring about the well-being and education of students, many government-funded schools are more motivated by selfish intentions.

However, school choice would redirect education funds straight to the students themselves; if parents wanted their children to go to a better public school outside of their zip code, a charter school, a private school, or even home school, parents would be allowed to take those education dollars with them to do so.

For lower-income parents in failing school districts, this option would be a godsend. Such a policy would greatly improve equality of opportunity for so many Americans.

Many Democrats, because of their strong ties to teachers unions, oppose school choice. If public schools had to compete with better schools, bad teachers would be fired and bad schools might even be closed down.

Americans need to decide which is more important — the education of our children, or protecting the jobs of incompetent teachers.