Heading into the 2024 election, Americans across the political spectrum are united on two key education priorities: preparing students for the workforce and attracting and retaining quality teachers. The latest PDK Poll highlights that over 80% of Americans want the next administration to focus on these issues, showing rare bipartisan agreement.
Why it matters: Education has emerged as a key issue for voters, with 54% of voters saying that public education will be extremely or very important in their decision-making for the upcoming presidential election. This percentage rises to 70% among public school parents, indicating that education is a top concern for certain demographics, especially those directly connected to the school system.
By the numbers:
- 61% say they support candidates who advocate for increasing public school funding.
- However, only 40% of Americans would encourage their children to pursue a teaching career, a significant drop from 75% in 1969.
- More than 60% of Americans support using AI to help teachers with lesson planning and tutoring, but only 43% back the use of AI for students’ homework
What they’re saying: According to W/A senior advisor and PDK International CEO James Lane, “There was strong consensus across the aisle around two education issues: preparing students for the workforce and attracting and retaining good teachers. Shared support was also expressed for addressing student mental health, helping students who have fallen behind, and college affordability.”
Lane also highlighted the challenges facing the teaching profession: “Consistent with our last poll, there was chilling support for Americans’ children to pursue a career in teaching, with inadequate pay and benefits leading the drawbacks to the profession. Clearly, the next administration has an opportunity to assuage these attitudes by making teaching in the public schools more rewarding so that we can begin to cool the crisis of not having enough qualified candidates coming into classrooms year after year.”
Where the divide begins: While there’s bipartisan support for workforce prep and teacher retention, other education issues reveal significant partisan divides:
- 86% of Democrats support increased attention to student mental health and college affordability, compared to less than two-thirds of Republicans.
- Democrats are more likely to back protections against student discrimination and expanding pre-K access, while Republicans lean more toward charter school expansion (however, neither party has more than 50% support for charter school expansion).
