Most Parents Are OK with Their Kids' Schools. NewsWire

NewsWire: 4/13/22

• Most parents with school-aged kids (73%) are satisfied with the quality of their kids’ education. Polling suggests the (modest) recent fall in Americans' esteem for K-12 schools is driven by their feelings about schools in general--not about the schools their own kids attend. (The New York Times)
  
• NH: Over the last couple of years, schools have come under fire for masking mandates, the teaching of critical race theory, and book banning. But this criticism hasn't significantly changed how parents view the schools their own kids attend. By and large, these parents remain pretty satisfied with their children's education.
• According to a 2021 poll by Gallup, 73% of parents with school-aged children are “completely/somewhat satisfied” with the education of their eldest child. That’s a healthy majority. Looking back over the last 23 years, sure, it's a bit on the low end of the normal range (-2 percentage points below the average). But it hasn't changed much since the pandemic.

• When Gallup polled all adults about schools in general, on the other hand, opinions were significantly more negative. In 2021, only 48% were satisfied with "the quality of education students receive" in K-12 schools in America. And 54% were “completely/somewhat dissatisfied”.

• So Americans are much more downbeat on the second question. But notice: On this question, they've always been more downbeat.
• Why? Reason number one is that the second question includes respondents who don't currently have kids in K-12 schools, which means it includes a lot of older Americans and childless Americans who have little daily contact with schools and may be more apt to form extreme opinions about what is wrong with them.
• Even more important is reason number two: People are much more likely to give a negative answer when asked about a national trend than when asked about that same trend in their own community. This well-known phenomenon has been called "the optimism gap." David Whitman wrote an excellent book about it over twenty years ago. And it applies to almost everything: how people feel about crime, politics, family life, morality--you name it. People always say that things are going much better in their own lives than in the country in general. Congress? It's a cesspool. But my own congressman? Hey, he or she is a decent person.
• What's more, in the response to this national question--as opposed to the other personal question--recent news headlines do seem to have moved the needle. As recently as 2019 and 2020, the percent expressing dissatisfaction was still at near-record-low levels (48%). But in 2021, it jumped to 54%.
• In warming up for the midterms, this survey evidence may give the Republican Party all the encouragement it needs. Many GOP candidates will no doubt figure that this is one more button that they should keep pressing.