Author: Caitlin Peartree

Last week, we took a look at two questions related to the idea that recovering from learning loss and boosting student achievement should be the priorities for education policy: whether K-12 education gives students the skills they need to succeed as adults, and whether our current educational system will allow the next generation to have the same quality of life as you had. Generally speaking, the answer to both questions was no. As we saw last week, only 30% believed the statement Our current educational system will allow the next generation to have the same quality of life as you had, while 53% did not believe it.

What would mean that our current educational system was providing students with the skills they needed? At least part of the answer is achieving a certain benchmark of proficiency in math and reading. Some 92% of voters overall say that having 50% of US students proficient or better in math and reading is important (92-4 important-not important), with 77% calling it very important.

Even more importantly, voters connect academic capabilities with the quality of life students will be able to achieve as adults. By more than 2:1, voters believed the statement Having 50% of our students proficient or better in math and reading will mean we have an educational system that will allow the next generation to have the same quality of life as you had (57-21 believe-do not believe). This is also a bipartisan view, with 53% of Republicans (53-24), 53% of independents (53-24) and 65% of Democrats (65-16) believing this statement. Among parents, 59% believe it (59-22).

Voters recognize the importance of proficiency and see its connection to having a quality of life that at least meets if not exceeds that of the present. A next step for advocates and policymakers then might be to declare 50% proficiency, as measured by a test like NAEP, as a national goal, and then define the steps that would need to be taken to achieve this benchmark.

As we noted last week, while much of the recent education policy debate has focused on cultural issues, voters believe that dealing with learning loss and boosting academic achievement should be the priority in education policy. This week, we take that theme a step farther by looking at two follow-up questions from our September survey for Winning the Issues (September 18-19): do voters think K-12 education gives students the skills they need to succeed as adults? And, will our current educational system allow the next generation to have the same quality of life as you had?

By a six-point margin, voters do not believe that K-12 education in the US gives students the skills they need to succeed as adults (41-47 believe-do not believe). Only Democrats (56-33) and to a slight extent parents (47-43) believe this statement, while Republicans (35-52) and independents (30-57) do not.

By an even larger margin, voters also did not believe our current educational system will allow the next generation to have the same quality of life as you had (30-53). Only Democrats believed this, but it was well shy of a majority view (44-38). Majorities of Republicans (22-62), independents (22-61) and a near majority of parents (35-47) did not believe the statement.

Not surprisingly, voters see the connection between “real world,” adult skills and quality of life. Among those who do said the US educational system does not give students the skills they need to succeed as adults, 83% say the current system will not allow the next generation to have the same quality of life (8-83 believe-do not believe).

Next week, we will take a look at what voters think would mean students were being provided with the skills they need, and a potential policy goal for lawmakers looking ahead to the next Congress.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, the education policy debate has focused largely on cultural issues particularly on the Republican side. Data from the most recent survey for Winning the Issues (September 18-19; 1,000 registered voters) suggests this would not be the strongest message on the education issue. In a direct contrast, voters say that dealing with learning loss from the Covid-19 pandemic and boosting student achievement is more important than dealing with cultural issues in K-12 schools by a margin of over 3:1 (65-21).

Agreement is bipartisan; with two-thirds of Republicans (66-21), 69% of independents (69-15), and 60% of Democrats (60-28) saying learning loss and boosting student achievement should be the priority, though neither party explicitly mentions a forward-looking plan for restoring lost learning in their platform. Even among the conservative GOP base, by more than 3:1, conservative Republicans agree that learning loss should be the priority (70-22).

The same survey for Winning the Issues showed a continued preference for Democrats to handle the issue of education. Voters now favor Democrats over Republicans by a margin of 12 (38-50 R- D), with independents now preferring Democrats 27-46. But among voters that prefer the Republicans on the issue of education, they want a focus on learning loss and student achievement by a 69-19 margin. Those that prefer Democrats also prefer a focus on learning loss, but by the slightly smaller margin of 63-25.

This data does not mean that cultural issues are not important, but it does mean that learning loss overwhelms cultural concerns as the priority in education. The results also indicate a missed opportunity for both parties in 2024. Going into next year, the party that captures learning loss as part of their education platform will have a significant advantage on the issue.

Earlier this month, the Center for Reinventing Public Education released a report intended to answer the following question: how easy would it be for a parent or advocate to compare student performance pre- and post-COVID? The answer, following the report’s analysis of the ease of finding student performance data and other metrics, was that it was not at all easy for a large number of states.

All 50 states and the District of Columbia were assessed based on the ease with which researchers were able to find pre- and post-Covid data on a variety of metrics, including student achievement levels and achievement growth in English language arts, math, science, and social studies. Overall, 13 (25%) earned an F for the ease with with their longitudinal data could be found. (In some cases, the longitudinal data was not available at all). Only 7 (14%) earned an A for the ease with which their longitudinal data could be found, with 9 (18%) earning a B, 14 (27%) earning a C, and 8 (16%) earning a D.

It’s important to note that the CRPE report was not intended to measure the quality of an individual state’s report card. The report itself noted that some states that had earned Fs nevertheless had easily navigable and “visually appealing” report cards. Rather, this report focused on whether states made it easy to compare pre-Covid data with post-Covid data across a variety of metrics. On balance, the answer was no, and even in “A” states, researchers still had trouble finding some of the metrics and/or disaggregated student data.

Still the lack of readily available longitudinal data means the work of ensuring students are getting caught up is that much harder. From the February survey for Winning the Issues, only 11% of voters thought students were where they normally would have been in their learning even accounting for the Covid disruptions. On the other hand, 27% said that they were significantly behind.

The fall semester is now in full swing at colleges and universities across the country. In preparation for students’ return, many schools updated their policies around protests, harassment, and discrimination, from the University of California and the California State University systems to Harvard University, Indiana University, the University of Virginia, and NYU. At the end of August, chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce Virginia Foxx and Missouri Rep. Jason Smith sent letters to institutions requesting that they share their updated plans for responding to campus demonstrations by September 5. Throughout the summer, several colleges and universities facing Title IV investigations were found to be lacking in their responses to antisemitism.

Protest activity has continued into the new semester, although at this point, it is not at the same scale we saw last spring. Cornell made headlines at the end of last month for campus demonstrations that included vandalism of school property. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that some 50 people protested at Columbia, and that a statue at the center of campus was vandalized with red paint. The story came only a few days after the WSJ also reported that a faculty task force “found antisemitism against students pervasive on the campus grounds—in dormitories, clubs and classrooms—and on social media.”

Colleges and universities find themselves in a precarious position with the electorate in how they choose to handle any protests that might arise this semester. From the April survey for Winning the Issues, conducted as the protest activity was ramping up last spring, only 19% of voters approved of how colleges and universities had handled the campus demonstrations (19-53 approve- disapprove). That shrank to 12% approving among independents (12-57).

Similarly, only 23% of voters overall said they agreed with the pro-Palestinian protests happening on college campuses (23-53 agree-disagree). Independents disagreed 19-54.

Voters were clearly dissatisfied with what they saw last spring. That independents were also dissatisfied indicates a larger potential problem that is not inherently partisan in nature. Whether the policy changes that colleges and universities made over the summer will effectively address student concerns and positively impact voters’ views is something we will continue to watch.