Poll: Education Focus Groups

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This Navigator Research report covers focus groups among public educators, school support staff, and parents on the state of public education.

TODAY’S BIG TAKEAWAYS:

• Educators feel a lack of support due to issues like staff shortages, budget cuts, and dwindling parent engagement.
• Parents are most concerned about safety in schools — with parents of middle and high school-aged children feeling more anxious about the state of education in the country.
• Even among participants who say the government spends wastefully, Republican cuts to education and Medicaid are seen as crossing a line in the context of how they will affect children.

“I feel like the school district is doing pretty well”

As many parents prepare for the school year, parents of elementary school students cite more optimism around their schools than middle and high school parents, as one elementary school parent from Pennsylvania said:

“I feel like the school district is doing pretty well, they’re really good with making sure the kids are taken care of and making sure there’s communication between the parents and look what their kids are doing in school.”

Parents of high school and middle school aged children cite more feelings of anxiety, due to several factors, but safety and quality of education emerge as top concerns. One high school parent from Oregon put it like this:

“I know that everybody [is] worried about violence and the only thing that worries me about it is bullies. It’s always been an issue at school and it’s always been since before. I don’t know how to address that.”

“You go and you look at students in other countries and you see how well they’re doing and how well they’re performing and I just get worried that my son might not be able to compete with what’s out there and that’s very, very worrying to me.” – Middle school parent, New York

In the latest Navigator survey, parents of elementary school students rated their local K-12 public schools positively by 22 points, while parents of middle and high school students ranked their public schools positively by 12 points.

“I think that behavior of children, the expectations of workloads, being underpaid on top of the workloads… It’s just pushing teachers out.”

Educators across grade levels and classroom roles express feeling an overwhelming lack of support. Administrators and parents emerge as top sources for their lack of support, with many feeling stretched too thin. One school counselor from Georgia said:

“You don’t get supported by your administration and higher-ups to actually stand on what they say we’re supposed to be doing. It’s kind of been there for probably the last almost 10 years now.”

“The materials are not provided. I have to provide my own materials. I’ve been printing my own stuff using my own printer because I would always make sure I get what I have to get for my student[s], but not all the teachers there can actually survive that way.” – Teacher, Texas.

Educators also express challenges with student behavior and lack of respect for teachers, with some believing the benefits of the teaching profession do not outweigh the stress and lack of support. One speech and language specialist from New Jersey said:

“There’s just no respect. There’s no respect for adults, whether they’re instructional adults or just somebody in the grocery store. Kids are given way too much power and not taught to respect, particularly in the school setting.”

“[I feel] overworked…I think that behavior of children, the expectations of workloads, being underpaid on top of the workloads.. It’s just pushing teachers out.” – Special education teacher, Virginia

Educators also express challenges with student behavior and lack of respect for teachers, with some believing the benefits of the teaching profession do not outweigh the stress and lack of support. One speech and language specialist from New Jersey said:

“There’s just no respect. There’s no respect for adults, whether they’re instructional adults or just somebody in the grocery store. Kids are given way too much power and not taught to respect, particularly in the school setting.”

“[I feel] overworked…I think that behavior of children, the expectations of workloads, being underpaid on top of the workloads.. It’s just pushing teachers out.” – Special education teacher, Virginia

“You can’t have one-on-one surveillance with everybody in the class that big with just one person”

Student behavior has become a flashpoint for both parents and educators. This leads, at times, to parents pointing the finger at educators and educators pointing to parents as the source of the problem.

Many parents express feeling a lack of trust with their child’s teachers, either because they believe teachers are overworked and stretched too thin or because they believe their teachers are not up to the job. One elementary school parent from Connecticut expressed the latter sentiment:

“Are they going to give that attention to her when she gets older? I don’t know… Is she going to have that attention and that ability that she needs? And some of that is the teachers are stretched thin because they have to handle behaviors.”

“Knowing that there’s only one teacher and 24, 25 kids, there’s not a lot of one-on-one. You can’t have one-on-one surveillance with everybody in the class that big with just one person.” – Elementary school parent, Michigan

While one high school parent from Florida said:

“I hear they don’t really pay attention to the kids that well, and that is very sad. So I have to stay on top of everything. Of the parents that I know, we have to stay on top of everything, make sure we’re there with the teachers. It’s exhausting. Or they just get left behind.”

Educators, however, largely express parent involvement as increasingly problematic and misplaced. Though many feel parents should be more involved in their children’s education, they also believe the existing parent involvement has become increasingly combative towards educators, as one special education teacher from Virginia said:

“[I feel] overworked… Having to deal with kids’ behaviors then the parents’ behaviors. And then it’s just not worth the money and the stress.”

“I feel as though there’s a disconnect from the school situation to the home life where we’re not building that teamwork, or we’re not building that, ‘Hey, we all have the same goal of getting these kids to their future next step. How are we going to do it?’” – Teacher, Pennsylvania

“The school shooter thing has not ever left my mind”

Parents across age groups overwhelmingly assert their top concern in schools as safety, particularly regarding school shootings. One elementary school parent from Connecticut said:

“Newtown is a half hour from me, so the school shooter thing has not ever left my mind. I’ve been able to have her here and have control over that. Now I got to put my faith in someone else who has to also divide their attention.”

“I’m always praying that everything’s well, especially of course seeing your kid off to school, you obviously want to see them come back” – Elementary school parent, Pennsylvania.

Participants’ concerns about school shootings mirrors Navigator’s most recent survey, where 79 percent of Americans cited feeling concerned about the persistent threat of school shootings, including 59 percent who felt “very” concerned.

“There’s probably just going to be more strain on students actually getting their services”

Participants across groups have seen the effects of cuts to public education. Cuts to education come up organically when talking about things not going well in schools today, with emphasis around the impacts that cuts to education will have on low income students or students with disabilities. One high school parent from New Jersey said:

“My son’s special needs, but he’s not, he’s mainstreamed, but the classes he would’ve been in a few years ago, they were affected by funding cuts directly.”

Some also see cuts affecting extracurricular activities, as one middle school parent from Ohio said:

“They’ve cut back a lot of the funding. They used to have all of these after school programs for the kids that were fully paid for. They even provided transportation to and from the school. They’ve taken all of that away. And I mean, I think that those after school programs are even more so crucial for the middle school and the high school kids to get.”

“A slap in the face for the children”

Awareness about the passage of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill is still low, but parents and educators believe the cuts to Medicaid and SNAP that affect children are inexcusable. One teacher from California said on cuts to school meals:

“[Cutting school meals would] be horrible because a lot of these kids—the parents aren’t making them breakfast or rushing them out to school, and that’s the only time they get to eat. Or they forget their lunch. Things like that happen. If it’s not free, I think that’s going to hurt a lot.”

Specifically when it comes to cuts to Medicaid and health care for children, one high school parent from New Jersey said:

“I can’t abide by taking medical care away from children. I mean, I think it’s despicable.”

And one high school parent from New York expressed:

“It’s not just a slap in the face for the children who are going to suffer, but the parents are stressed and suffering as well.”

“it seems like we always have money for everything else”

While some parents and educators agree the government spends wastefully, participants unanimously agree children’s health and welfare are not where the government spends wastefully. Parents and educators both agree that the health and safety of children is not where government figures should be playing politics. One high school parent from New Jersey said:

“I agree that we don’t have money, but it seems like we always have money for everything else… I don’t care if we can’t afford to pay for medical care for kids, take more money from me, take more property taxes. I think if there’s something we’re going to just throw money at, I think even if it’s wasteful spending, morally speaking”

One middle school parent from New York said:

“You see how much money America is giving to all these different wars and all this money could be used here… It’s like, you don’t have a choice of how your funding should go, and then the politicians are not doing a good job of accounting for where the funds are going to. They don’t listen to the people. It’s getting more frustrating. It’s like our kids are our future and they just don’t care. I don’t know.”