When it rains, it pours.
We just spent the last two days lamenting over our country’s latest NAEP (the National Assessment of Educational Progress or The Nation’s Report Card). And now there’s more bad news.
Today, EducationWeek released a story that addresses American opinions about the quality of public education in the United States. Kevin Bushweller, Deputy Managing Editor for EdWeek, writes,
“The percentage of adults who report feeling dissatisfied about public education has increased steadily from 62 percent to 73 percent between 2019 and 2025, according to Gallup’s annual public satisfaction survey. The percentage of adults who now feel satisfied with public education is the lowest since 2001, the report notes.”
“The report – which tracks Americans’ satisfaction across 31 aspects of U.S. society or policy such as the military, health care, and crime – found that public education ranked 29th among those 31 areas.”
“’Americans’ persistent low satisfaction with national conditions may be hard for the nation’s leaders to address; however, the rank order of concerns resulting from this poll offers [President] Trump and officials at all levels of government guidance on where the public might appreciate them focusing their efforts,’ the report says.”
“The Gallup poll comes less than a week after news that U.S. students’ reading scores had plunged further on the test known as the nation’s report card. For both 4th and 8th grade, scores on the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress have shown a steady decline in that subject that started before school building closures during the pandemic.”
“That continuing slide was the case despite a big infusion of federal aid to schools during the Biden administration to start up tutoring and other programs to help students catch up academically.”
“Precisely what is driving the findings is unclear. It could be related to the falling test scores, parents’ lingering dissatisfaction with months of remote and hybrid schooling that led to learning loss, or the negative discourse about race and gender and charges of indoctrination that have been leveled at teachers since 2020. The poll didn’t plumb why American adults held their views.”
“Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research for Gallup, said the pandemic and related moves to remote and hybrid learning did ‘set the ball rolling for this heightened dissatisfaction.’”
“It’s worth noting that when Gallup has asked parents in other surveys about their own local public schools, their satisfaction historically has been much higher than Americans’ view of public education more generally. Saad said that is likely because parents’ views of their own schools are based on direct experience with those schools whereas Americans’ views of public education more generally are based largely on what they see in the media.”
“The poll was based on telephone interviews conducted January 2-15 of this year with a random sample of 1,005 adults, ages 18 and older, living in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.”
…
It seems like the “punching bag” for all this frustration with recent data and surveys is the U.S. Department of Education. Donald Trump and Elon Musk say it has to close.
But here’s the deal – most of the dismal results shown in reading and math data, along with a rising level of dissatisfaction with our current public education system, comes from state and local management of schools and classrooms. True, federal programs like President Obama’s Race to the Top and Joe Biden’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding were large infusions of federal money with short-term, mixed results. But most of the work on improving reading and math scores, along with our public’s perception of how well our educational system works falls to state and local elected officials.
A final word on our U.S. Department of Education. A big reason the U.S. created a department (back in 1980) responsible for overseeing public education was the fact that many states and locales were ignoring basic civil rights and special education accommodations for primarily black, brown, and poor kids. It also didn’t help that three years later, the report A Nation at Risk was released indicting the American public education system for low performance.
Here’s the question: Do we really think that all states and local school leadership will take it upon themselves to care for black, brown, and poor kids academically, socially, and emotionally?
It’s not happening now. Why should we think closing the U.S. Department of Education will help it happen tomorrow?
Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB
A Better Path to Learning 
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