By Martin Slagter
While educating America’s youth should not be a political issue, the statistics tell a different story.
According to an earlier Pew survey on education from November 2023, half of Americans think public education is heading in the wrong direction, compared to just 16% who feel otherwise.
Diverging perspectives on education’s direction
Among adults who view public education as going in the wrong direction, Republicans tend to focus on the lack of time spent on core subjects and worry teachers are bringing their political and social views into the classroom. Democrats, on the other hand, worry about insufficient funding and resources, as well as parents’ excessive influence on what schools are teaching.
Division over the influence of America’s public schools has taken on different forms throughout the decades, from preparing students for the fallout of nuclear war during the Cold War to accountability measures like the rise of standardized testing in the 1980s and the No Child Left Behind Act passing in 2002.
Today, parents are divided on many issues that have prompted them to seek alternative options like homeschooling and charter schools. Others, connected to a network of conservative groups, have taken a more active and vocal role in challenging everything from school curricula to censoring book choices in school libraries. About a dozen states have pushed for and expanded voucher programs in recent years, although “school choice” ballot measures failed in multiple states where President Donald Trump won this past election. According to a February 2024 survey led by the University of Southern California Center for Applied Research in Education, there is clear bipartisan support on the right to a free, public education.
However, Americans across party lines have different ideas about who should influence what is taught in the classrooms. According to a fall 2022 Pew survey, about half of Republicans or Republican-leaning parents thought the federal government had too much influence over what is taught in K-12 schools, as opposed to just 1 in 5 Democrat parents.
The role of federal and state governments
The survey also found close to half of Republican-leaning parents thought there was not enough influence from parents over what was taught in the classroom, compared to almost 1 in 4 Democrat-leaning parents. Democrats and Republicans, according to Pew’s findings, are also divided on how certain topics—such as slavery, gender identity, sexual education, and the United States’ political position in the world—should be covered in school.
Trump vowed to close the Department of Education leading up to the 2024 election, which would require an act of Congress. The department is responsible for collecting data and tracking public and private school achievement, disbursing Title I funds for students with disabilities or students experiencing poverty, and administrating higher-ed federal student loans and work-study programs, among other roles. However, this federal institution does not determine curricula; that is left up to each state’s Board of Education.
Closing the department would not undo Title I, established to provide money to schools with many students from low-income households. If the Education Department were eliminated, funding would flow through another federal agency.
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How Americans feel about large institutions
Apart from education, Pew’s January 2024 national survey also measured how American adults viewed the impacts of a broad spectrum of institutions, including the military, small businesses, labor unions, technology companies, large corporations, banks and financial institutions, and churches and religious organizations.
The partisan divide between Democrats and Republicans on both K-12 and higher education is most closely mirrored in their views on labor unions, followed closely (and inversely) by churches and religious organizations.
Labor unions have long been seen as supporters of the Democratic Party. According to a 2023 Pew survey, about 3 in 5 (59%) voters lean Democratic. Historically, union influence has advocated for social security, health insurance, and even the concept of weekends. In the 1950s, 1 in 3 private sector workers belonged to unions, according to political economist Margaret Levi. By 2021, that figure dropped to 1 in 16, partly aided by Republican-backed “right to work” laws that have effectively shrunk unions. Trump’s reelection also bodes for more pro-business policies that would make it more difficult for workers to unionize.
However, according to the Center for American Progress, there is a resurgence of union interest, bolstered by Gen Zers. Strikes and strike threats in the last few years have secured workers gains in wages, especially in parcel delivery, health care, and education.
Conversely, about 3 in 4 (73%) Republican or Republican-leaning respondents viewed churches and religious organizations positively versus just 45% of Democrats and Democrat-leaning respondents. Many religious voters have mostly been drawn to the Republican party, Matthew Wilson, a political scientist and associate professor at Southern Methodist University, told Spectrum News. “So now, looking at someone’s level of religious commitment tells you more about their likely partisan allegiance than just about anything else you could know.” This applies most to white voters, he added.
Despite many areas where Americans differ across party lines, they do agree on the impact of some institutions. Both Republicans and Democrats were overwhelmingly supportive of small businesses, at 87% and 88%, respectively. While adults in both parties are more closely aligned on their feelings about institutions like the military, there is less overall support from both. Adults from both parties align with the view that banks and large corporations are negatively viewed.
Regardless of their political leanings, dismantling the DOE would have far-reaching consequences for many Americans. Federal programs like the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and Income-Driven Repayment could be eliminated, along with vital funding and oversight for programs that support an estimated 75 million public school students with disabilities.
Story editing by Carren Jao. Copy editing by Sofía Jarrín. Photo selection by Ania Antecka.
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What is the root cause of underperforming students in the United States? It’s hunger/poverty. Perhaps all these republicans who preach Christian values should actually enact them by supporting free meals at school to boost those test scores they complain about all the time.
Kids here do get free meals – including those who whose parents have plenty of money to feed them breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday – but guess what – they’re performing poorly academically. And the meals are nutritionally-poor as well, especially at the grammar school level. Concha’s and pastries? Yeah, I’ve seen it first-hand in the cafeterias because I volunteered in my local grammar school, it’s sad. Might as well dole out twinkies. Can you say diabetes-obesity epidemic? I can.
No, it’s not all about free meals. Sure, for some percentage of kids whose parents don’t have enough money to feed them, that’s a plus, but if you think throwing all the “free” meals at them is the answer, I’ve got news for ya.
The way the District is teaching is the real issue, not food. And their role certainly isn’t to be overreaching into social engineering and preaching some of these currently trendy DEI, PC, and various other completely inappropriate avenues.
Would you agree with this – the Dems are in complete control in CA at almost every level, especially in education, and that they’re doing a poor job of educating out students?
Yes, no, maybe?
Well, the answer is Yes, and that’s a fact, Jack. So save the blaming Republicans for what’s here with CA education’s lack of success. It’s completely false.
Except SBSURFERLIFE is talking about nationwide, not one of the richest towns in the country. Can you say “missed the point?” We all can.
Also, conchas aren’t served 3 meals a day as the only item. Don’t forget your “zero protein” tofu though.
BASIC – “Yeah, she is” – No he or she is not. Read their words. Now read them again. One more time. And again: “What is the root cause of underperforming students in the United States?”
When I refer to Santa Barbara, I don’t call it “the United States.” No one does. Well, except for you maybe.
There is an overabundance of data showing that poverty is a root cause of poor school performance. Show us one study/cite anything by an actual expert showing the cause of poor school performance is DEI or PC (whatever that even means in this context).
You keep saying this and have yet to provide any evidence. Why? Why do you insist on using social media memes, rants from Tucker Carlson, Musk, et al for your “facts?” Why?
Yeah, she is, and also you just reinforced my point.
If one of the richest areas in the country – giant economy, tons of tax dollars – while also providing free breakfasts and lunches to all students everyday, cant succeed in providing a quality education – then how in the world do you argue that poverty and lack of food are the most crucial aspects of solving our country’s education crisis? Doesn’t add up at all.
But hey, maybe our local top-heavy (giant Admin salaries and benefits) education system could have something to do with it? Tell us what political party is responsible for that!
That’s what facts and research are for. To help explain the problem and provide possible solutions. And the United States does not have universal free meals for all students at all public schools. But studies do show that states and districts that offered this during and post the pandemic had an increase in attendance and test scores. Imagine how well kids nationwide would perform if this was part of public education. Again, facts, data, peer-reviewed research are offering options to solve this problem.
What do you think the “value of public education is”?
That’s the topic. I’ll tell you what I think, it’s paramount. But the way the current public systems are going it’s losing ground fast. And that’s a problem. Do you ever wonder why it’s going downhill so fast? You should.
Not a reality based observation, but that’s you.
Your strategy is a losing one SbSurfer. Without a proper education, all the crappy free food in the world won’t help kids and their future generations get ahead.
Backwards, as usual.
Hunger is part of the problem of poverty. And that’s great that most kids here get free meals, we can discuss their quality on a different thread since that’s a different topic. But it doesn’t exclude the FACT that the research and studies show that hunger/poverty are the main causes of school performance and not teachers. Again, these are facts not personal stories from a dude who volunteered at school once. You can blame an imaginary issue such as “wokeness” for problems all you want but there is no data or facts to back up your theory. Poverty does have data to back up its claim. I will absolutely blame republicans who think putting the 10 commandments and bibles in classrooms, banning books, and arming teachers is going to fix all the education problems without any evidence whatsoever.
Interesting article, although the title is misleading. I don’t think one side or the other “values” public education more, rather it’s a difference in how they feel the current public education is performing in its role. Repubs tend to be dissatisfied with the trends of being a poorly performing system relative to the rest of the developed world, while Dems seem to be ok with it as it is currently, and are probably making things worse by taking away from fundamental, time-proven ways of teaching and replacing them with this new socially-driven agenda that doesn’t have anything to do with teaching kids the skills needed to compete and thrive in their future careers. Yet another part of why the Dems lost the election.
Drivel.
Drivel is exactly how I would classify the current state of education.
Time to start flunking kids who don’t learn. Expelling kids who are disruptive. And bringing back discipline into the classroom so that students can once again begin to learn.
I don’t think the title is misleading, and your comment simply shows some of the reasons that only 34% of Republicans feel that public education has a positive effect on society. In other words, they don’t value public education, exactly as the title states.
I would also add that the rose colored glasses you are viewing past educational practices are hazier than an IPA, and in fact education in USA has been a continually changing and evolving system that has nothing whatsoever to do with the Democratic party, but advances in brain research and pedagogy.
More importantly, the “socially-driven” agenda that conservative Americans whine about is 99% fake. There is no pornography in school libraries. There are no litter boxes in school bathrooms. School nurses are not performing gender reassignment surgeries on random students. Critical race theory was never taught in K-12 schools. Teachers do not indoctrinate students to hate white people, or Jewish people, or make white students feel guilty, or “turn them gay”. Parents and local community leaders have an important voice in all public school decisions; their rights are not being trampled. These are all lies promoted by prominent Republican leaders to get frightened and gullible people to give them money and power. This is why Republican voters do not value public education, as evidenced by their preferences for private school vouchers, home schooling, public school teacher bashing, religion-based education, transgender-student hysteria, book bans, word bans and a seemingly endless torrent of fantastical lies about what happens in classrooms and campuses.
I agree with you that it is an interesting article, and I suggest that you follow the advice your teachers decades ago probably gave you, but you may have forgotten: read it again
BASIC – That’s not really accurate. Democrats aren’t all “ok with it as it is.” We all see and acknowledge, quite often actually, how flawed it is and how low performing our nation’s public schools are in general. Republicans have always had it out for public education. See Kirk’s comment on that.
I think where the parties differ is on how to address it. Republicans want to cut funding (always have) and push for private schools. That’s their MO on everything really – privatize it. Further (again see Kirk’s comment), they attack anything that isn’t “reading, writing, math,” and are now banning books, certain curricula, even certain words. Really, they’re doing all they can to dismantle public education, starting with the dissolution of the Dept of Education. Hard to honestly state they “value” it.
On the other hand, Dems want to continue funding schools and paying teachers more so they can do their extremely important jobs even better. We want religion out of schools and we want the truth being taught, not whitewashed history. We want our public schools to teach and perform as well as private ones so that everyone, regardless of income, religion, race, gets a fair shot at the American Dream.
Surprisingly poverty is not the reason why many students are behind in reading. The approach to how we teach someone to read is finally changing to structured literacy approach based on science and 5 key components namely phonics, phonemic awareness, comprehension, vocabulary and fluency. For years our public schools relied on the cueing system which is based on guessing at a word from the images in a book. This approach has little if any phonics so students were not taught how to “decode” which a skill that enables one to read. Many publishers continued this deeply flawed approach because it was lucrative for them. Emily Hanford an investigative reported uncovered this and has lead a change throughout our country. Missisippi a state with high poverty did the change years ago and now has some of the highest student outcomes. Teachers were not taught the scientific method in their colleges so now they have to be trained on the job. Implementing the scientific approach is expensive but key to success because reading does not come naturally. Some students may catch on with the flawed method but most won’t. English language learners and neurodivergent students won’t become readers unless they are taught in this explicit , structured literacy approach. Sadly the Bush admin. was onto this because Barbara Bush’s son Neil was dyslexic. Many would not embrace it because politics got in the way. We need to keep politics out of education and go with science. Our district has implemented the structured literacy approach but it take years to fully implement. And if teachers leave our district due to low pay the investment in training leaves with them.. We need to spend less in admin and more in the classroom. And we need to stick to science. Listen to Emily Hanford podcast, “Told a Story ” to get a detailed, informative look at what it takes to learn to read.
Poverty is the main reason students nationwide are underperforming across the board, not just reading.
Not around here. Totally wrong.
No, BASIC. YOU are totally wrong, as usual. Believe it or not, not everyone has 2 boats in SB. There’s a huge economic disparity in this town.
But, go ahead and prove it. You know you won’t because you can’t, but once again, we’re all waiting for you to stand by your claims. Will you?
Best to look up the definition of food insecurity for some self education. Nearly 70,000 people are living under the poverty level in Santa Barbara County. You may have never experienced it but that doesn’t stop you from being empathetic to those who do.
They’ll get nowhere – all of the kids around here, and elsewhere – whether rich or poor – if they don’t have good teaching. That is the point I’m making and the one I believe you are missing. We could go back and forth all night but you believe in one thing and I believe in another. I stand with less money for garbage ‘free food’ and other folks who support wasteful top-down spending on Hilda’s style of “education”, and more money going to teachers themselves and the fundamental principles of education. What’s going on currently isn’t working.
Again, a big part of why Dems lost the election. You do start to see a pattern here right?
Teacher quality doesn’t matter if a student is hungry. You’ve got it backwards, as usual.
So wait, now you’re saying our teachers aren’t good enough? Why are you so reistant to simple, BASIC facts?
Poverty, hunger, lack of resources (eg, school supplies, current books, etc) are the well established driving forces behind poor performance.
Sure, teaching quality is critical, but that has nothing to do with what you’ve been saying here all night: that “DEI and PC” policies or whatever you’re scared of, is what has hurt public education. And again, you offer no evidence to back that.
Anonymous: You’re right. Poverty is inexplicitly linked to underperformance . And children need to be fed and the whole child’s needs cannot be ignored as a baseline to being receptive to learning. All students can learn to read early and well if they are taught in the way that is supported by science and one that they learn best in, full of explicit instruction and lots of repetition. Practice and a tailored approach can get every student to be a strong reader and critical thinker . Also the arts and finding what brings each student joy is key to getting student engaged and successful. Sometimes the system blames poverty when the system could have addressed underperformance by offering the best approach and timely intensive interventions. I wish we as a community invested more in the education system than the justice system.
I don’t understand how it can take so long to implement the structured literacy approach. Is it that complicated?
It’s not complicated. It’s about voters around here that support the ‘Hilda School District’ by voting for the current School Board members. Those voters are ultimately the ones standing in the way. That’s the issue. It’s always going to be a big battle around here to make a change, unfortunately, it’ll take a big change in voting to change the schools around here. I hope it can happen.
Achoo: Excellent points.. one wouldn’t think it takes that long to implement the structured literacy approach but it does currently in the overall district . Though there is an overall improvement for 2nd grade others are not neccessarily being taught in the science of reading approach because the district does not force teachers to learn it and the district is big and paying for training hours is also part of it. One good example though is Peabody. The key was good leadership with prior experience and full teacher buy in.
Peabody picked a science of reading approach by Moats called LTRS which is challenging and can 2 years to learn. Anyway Peabody started it two years before the pandemic and their scores now are the highest in the district and teachers were compensated for training and all was organized collaboratively ahead of implementation.
The district does not have the same situation as Peabody because of very different leaders.