How satisfied are you with the quality of education K-12 students receive in the US today?

Completely satisfied (12%) – "Public education has a decent chance to succeed when "everyone" invests in it. And while there have always been challenges with funding, teacher education or support from politicians, generally speaking, particularly in smaller communities, "everyone" invested and supported public education. But a small group of parents that just a few years ago would have been considered "outliers", has more recently grown in numbers and influence. This group never really wanted much to do with public education or a system designed to educate the masses. And that was ok. To each their own. But in the last decade or so this "small group" has grown their influence and political support into a coordinated attack on the institution of public education. Were there always problems? Sure. Does lack of support alone explain college readiness or the ability to read on grade level? No it does not. But in a school or community where there were and are issues, the old model of most "everybody" trying to work together toward a solution is long gone. Now that support (financially and otherwise) has been replaced with...........Give me a voucher, give me a charter school, or give me a private school. So yes, public education can and does educate and prepare, sadly in fewer and fewer places."

Somewhat satisfied (22%) – "It is not so much the quality and qualifications of the teachers, but about the students preparedness. The students that do well in primary school are the ones whose parents are encouraging and helping their children to learn to read and write. Those that are not satisfied are those that expect the schools to take full responsibility for how their child does in school. Children of well educated parents also tend to do better since these parents are able to understand and are able to explain to their child what they need to do to learn. People (parents) need to understand that learning starts at home."

• "The foundation of education is there. The problem lies with lack of work ethic; attendance issues, imposed curriculum that overshoots the students abilities, and lack of developmental skills that are not present in teaching. Schools are expected to teach everything from academics to social emotional wellness. Schools were designed to teach basics but students don’t have basic executive functioning skills to sustain focus, manage time, or follow through on work completion."

Somewhat dissatisfied (34%) – "As an educator, I know how much time and effort teachers put into their work. However, as a parent I can see the glaring deficits and the way they impact my own children and their education. We do not prepare students for life, we merely prepare them for the "next step" or next test - whatever that may be. Teacher evaluations are a huge component of this, as we are rated on our effectiveness by how we impact student scores, which is why there is so much concentration on test scores rather than whole-student instruction that is much harder to measure. Grading has become contrived and unfair, as high-achieving students are still pushed to "do their best" whereas students at risk of failing are given supports and often pushed through the system without accomplishment."

• "I was an educator and worked in education reform before transitioning to stay home with my children, 3 of whom are now in public school. I am very concerned about how unadaptive our education system and philosophies have been since the rise of AI. We are not preparing our children with an education that will match the world they will enter as adults. I am also deeply concerned about the decline in reading for pleasure and growth, as well as the overall lack of critical thinking skills that result from reading and deep thinking."

"Teachers are overwhelmed with all of the work. This isn’t one of those issues where you can just nutshell it. Kids aren’t reading and spend too much of their time outside of the classroom looking at screens. Kindergarten teachers have to incorporate lessons on how to be bored and entertain yourself. High school teachers are finding themselves with students that try to AI everything. I teach high school, and yesterday I spent time in class reviewing elementary grammar skills teaching them better ways to encounter fill in the blank vocabulary questions. Many of them didn’t remember the rule of sound indicating when to use a or an. I’m genuinely worried about these kids becoming adults. There’s not enough time in the day to catch them up. Schools have become a kind of dumping ground for the problems, but the problems start at home. Some of the people who are dissatisfied need to take a look in the mirror because the problems are happening before the kids start school."

Completely dissatisfied (32%) – "Schools today forgot about the basics, reading, writing and arithmetic along with physical education. Students need to build that foundation. The focus seems to drift towards new ways to reinvent the wheel. Teach the kids how to think as opposed to how they should feel. When they graduate into the real world, then they can make their own judgements on cultural topics."

• "As a veteran teacher, I am completely dissatisfied with the system as a whole. Teachers and parents are often blamed for the many issues students face in the classroom but it’s within the system itself that would require -years- of work if we could come together as a community to dismantle and rebuild what is lacking. As someone who had to leave the classroom, I miss the job itself but not the chronic stress."

"It shouldn't surprise anyone that the trend line shifted dramatically during the pandemic when most parents got to witness what their kids were being taught and how first hand. My personal issue with education in the US goes back way before COVID and it stems from the cultural shift in education away from classical education, meaning giving students the tools to be critical thinkers and able to grasp broad subjects through application of logic and concepts, to a system that taught what to regurgitate for a test and also lauded "novel" approaches to teaching long-established concepts regardless of whether they were actually better approaches that yielded better results("new math"). Mr. Incredible said it for a whole generation of parents "Why would they change math? Math is math!""