Americans’ confidence in U.S. public schools is nearing an all-time low, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday.
The percentage of Americans who said they had a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in public schools hit 28% in 2022, the second lowest on record since Gallup started polling in the 1970s.
Only 28% of Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our Public School system. pic.twitter.com/LmyJ07YJvT
— Ryan Delk (@delk) July 15, 2022
Democrats and Republicans differed by a 29-point gap, with Democrats sitting at 43% confidence and Republicans recording just 14%. Republicans dropped a significant 20-points since 2020. In the same period, Democrats only dropped by five points.
Both parties experienced a jump in confidence in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic due to increased support for educational workers. Democrats stood at a 48% confidence and Republicans at 34% confidence in 2020, according to the poll. Since then, both parties have experienced a decline in trust of public schools, according to Gallup. (RELATED: POLL: Democrats Are Quickly Becoming The Party Of White Elites)
Half of Republicans now express very little or no confidence in public schools, with Gallup connecting these results with their past January polls. These polls showed that 20% of Republicans were satisfied with “The quality of public education in the nation” and 34% were satisfied with the quality of K-12 education.
Less than one percent of Republicans claim education is the most important problem facing the country, according to a separate June poll.
Americans’ confidence in education is recorded as part of Gallup’s annual survey that assesses public confidence in a multitude of national institutions. Gallup surveyed 1,015 U.S. adults and the margin of sampling error for the poll was ±5 percentage points at 95% confidence level.