The AFT commissioned a highly reputable polling form to find out how voters think about the big education issues. The poll was conducted after the election last November. Bottom line: Voters want better, well/resourced public schools; few are interested in the Republican agenda of fighting “wokeness,” censoring books, and choice.
New Polling Reveals GOP/McCarthy Schools Agenda Is Unpopular and at Odds with Parents’ Priorities
Latest Data Show Parents, Voters Reject Culture War Agenda, Support Academic Focus and Safe Schools Instead
WASHINGTON—The American Federation of Teachers today released new national polling that shows voters overwhelmingly reject House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s anti-school, culture war agenda. Instead, voters want to see political leaders prioritize what kids need to succeed in school: strong fundamental academic skills and safe and welcoming school environments.
“The latest education poll tells us loud and clear: Voters, including parents, oppose McCarthy’s agenda to prioritize political fights in schools and instead support real solutions, like getting our kids and teachers what they need to recover and thrive,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten.
“Rather than reacting to MAGA-driven culture wars, voters overwhelmingly say they want lawmakers to get back to basics: to invest in public schools and get educators the resources they need to create safe and welcoming environments, boost academic skills and pave pathways to career, college and beyond.”
According to Geoff Garin, president of Hart Research Associates: “One key weakness of the culture war agenda is that voters and parents reject the idea that teachers today are pushing a ‘woke’ political agenda in the schools. Most have high confidence in teachers. Voters see the ‘culture war’ as a distraction from what’s important and believe that politicians who are pushing these issues are doing so for their own political benefit.”
Polling conducted by Hart Research Associates from Dec. 12-17, 2022, among 1,502 registered voters nationwide, including 558 public school parents, shows that support for and trust in public schools and teachers remains incredibly strong:
- 93 percent of respondents said improving public education is an important priority for government officials.
- 66 percent said the government spends too little on education; 69 percent want to see more spending.
- By 29 points, voters said their schools teach appropriate content, with an even greater trust in teachers.
- Voters who prioritized education supported Democrats by 8 points.
- Top education priorities for voters include providing:
- students with strong fundamental academic skills;
- opportunities for all children to succeed, including through career and technical education and greater mental health supports, as examples; and
- a safe and welcoming environment for kids to learn.
- According to voters, the most serious problems facing schools include:
- teacher shortages;
- inadequate funding;
- unsafe schools; and
- pandemic learning loss. (And, critically, voters and parents are looking forward to find solutions: by 85 percent to 15 percent, they want Congress to focus on improving schools through greater support, rather than through McCarthy’s investigation agenda.)
“COVID was terrible for everyone,” added Weingarten. “Educators and parents took on the challenges of teaching, learning and reconnecting and are now asking elected officials to focus on the building blocks of student success. Instead, legislators in 45 states have proposed hundreds of laws making that harder—laws seeking to ban books from school libraries; restrict what teachers can say about race, racism, LGBTQIA+ issues and American history; and limit the school activities in which transgender students can participate. Voters are saying that not only are these laws bad policy—they’re also bad politics.”
In state after state in the November midterms, voters elected pro-public education governors and school board candidates and rejected far-right attacks on teachers and vulnerable LGBTQIA+ students.
The survey’s confidence interval is ±3.0 percentage points.
Click here for toplines, here for the poll memo and here for the poll slides.
The sad thing is that the few parents who embrace the culture wars make it miserable for teachers and cheapen education for the vast majority who trust teachers. What most community members don’t realize is the lack of institutional (school , district, and state) support is an enormous problem for teachers.
It’s basically a very small number of people who care about the culture wars who have created the appearance that everyone cares by financing astroturf “parent” groups.
Laura Chapman (RIP) was an expert at sleuthing all the ins and outs of these groups.
I used to say that she knew more about the billionaires than they knew about themselves.
I have often wondered what became of all the information she had compiled. She was quite literally a walking encyclopedia on that subject and many others.
Twitter acts as a megaphone for the “culture war” with people like Elon Musk as cheerleaders.
But luckily, a lot of people are no longer buying his BS and are starting to see him as a con artist.
Second the reference to Laura Chapman. A bloodhound for moral rectitude vs mendacity
We miss LC! Carol Burris is another of these dogged investigators. Mercedes Schneider as well.
And our own Divine Diane!
Parents that rely on and value quality public education should understand that voting for right wing extremists to represent them is hurting their local public schools and the education their children receive. These elected extremists are not representing issues important to the middle class. They are working for the Koch network and other assorted billionaires and corporations that are financing the propaganda campaign against public education. They have been selling and perpetuating lies and misinformation. These voters are voting against their own self-interests. If they value public education, libraries, Medicare, Social Security and the USPS, they should stop putting right wing extremists in positions of power. These public services are not evil. They are simply under attack in order to sow seeds of mistrust in them.
These extremists have no use for any notion of the common good, and their objective is to further subjugate the working class and transfer funds to the ultra-wealthy. This is class warfare. The GOP=Greed Opposing Progress. Until parents understand this, they will continue to vote against the interests of their own children while blindly following conservative tribalism.
Seems to me that while there is a majority who favor support for public schools, it is not the most important issue upon which they base their votes in an election.
Stories about what people support and can’t get done are missing the point. Under the current political reality, partisan and fascist minorities are so large, and in areas where they have even slight majorities, they quickly attempt to rig systems to disenfranchise as much of their opposition as possible. There is not concerted political strategy and whatever tactics exist have proven to be feeble. Our side still does not understand that the rules of governing have shifted; they are playing by obsolete–albeit lofty–rules.
We claim to care about rights and obvious issues like gun registration, but do nothing to understand that power is the determining factor and do something about it. Either we do not have enough power in those rare cases when we have majorities or fail to grapple with the reality of obstructionism that uses the system to kill it and replace with another. But the public structures and official language will not. We rest our laurels on winning tight elections and being “right” on big issues. As Ibsen wrote in An Enemy of the People, “The right? Ah, what does it help to be in the right if you don’t have any power?”
Gerrymandering has stacked the deck for minority rule.
The narcisistic, psycho/sociopathic extreme right, mostly ALEC billionaires funding campaigns with dark money attacking “wokeness,” censoring books, and choice, don’t care what the majority of Americans think.
What counts is what they think, what they want. The hell with everyone else. The Nazis had a solution for people that do not agree with these types of billionaires and their followers and they wouldn’t hesitate to launch another Final Solution to create the world they want.
Hear that sound? It’s the sound of Repugnicans digging the grave of their own party.
During the recent election, we in Georgia saw frequent misleading ads lamenting Warnock’s position on general political issues as a means to oppose him to be Senator. Why can’t the AFT and others produce honest ads about the work of teachers while promoting what makes public schools popular?
Paul,
The GOP has a playbook where they attack the opposition with the words of the most extreme members of their party. They accuse Democrats of being “the radical left,” (Trump’s words), socialists, wanting to “Defund the police.” The Dems fail to tell the truth about the GOP: the leadership proposes to cut Social Security, Medicare, and other entitlements.
y question is why can’t progressives be just as aggressive with the truth?
A good question.
The answer: Conservatives believe in telling stories, progressives believe in telling facts. Stories are more persuasive than reason and facts. Read George Lakoff.