2019 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K-12 Education, Busing, Technology, and School Choice

This is the seventh edition of EdChoice's "Schooling in America Survey." Each year, researchers poll the general public on a range of issues in K-12 education. In 2019, the polling results are based on a nationally representative sample of the general public that includes 1,810 online and phone interviews. Over time, EdChoice has increasingly cast a spotlight on the opinions and attitudes of parents of school-age children and public school teachers. EdChoice continues to poll greater numbers of those stakeholders in this edition. Researchers surveyed 435 parents who currently have children in elementary or secondary schools, as well as an additional 394 parents who no longer have school-age children. They also obtained completed online surveys from 601 current public school teachers. This year, researchers collected additional interviews from those born in 1981 or later--beyond the general public sample--to obtain more robust oversamples of Generation Z (N = 637) and Millennials (N = 617). Researchers asked their standard questions about schooling experiences and educational choice reforms, but went further to learn how people feel about hot-button K-12 subjects that seem to polarize lawmakers and advocates, including busing, teacher protests, and children's use of technology. Findings reveal the following: (1) Parents' schooling preferences do not match their kids' actual educational experiences; (2) People like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) best, especially when they are open to all families; (3) People do not know what schooling costs--public or private--but most still think public schools need more money; and (4) Younger generations are most supportive of busing students to schools outside their assigned district, and current public school teachers really oppose it. [The team at Braun Research assisted in project development. For the 2018 report, "2018 Schooling in America: Public Opinion on K-12 Education, Parent and Teacher Experiences, Accountability, and School Choice," see ED600702.]