Our last newsletter asked the question: where is the political will to address the clear challenges we are facing in education? We speculated that voters might see the problem as so challenging, they don’t know how we would begin to solve it. Or, they may not be aware of the scale of the problem, as other issues crowd out a sustained focus on academic achievement. This week, we take a closer look at how aware voters are of the challenges we are facing.
In our latest survey for Winning the Issues (March 15-17) we asked voters whether they believed or did not believe that 40% of fourth graders are below basic in reading, a figure from the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress released last year. The answer: by an overwhelming margin, voters say that this significant portion of fourth graders is not meeting the basic threshold, with 69% believing this statement (69-19).
With some variations, this view is generally held across the electorate. Seventy-one percent of Republicans (71-19), 73% of independents (73-16), and 68% of parents (68-22) believed this statement. Democrats believed it 64-20. This view was also shared among those with a high school diploma, some college, or an associate’s degree (69-18) and those with a bachelor’s degree or post-graduate education (69-20).
While other groups had majorities believe this statement, they were somewhat less likely to compared to the overall electorate. Among Black voters, 57% believed this statement (57-31), compared to 71% of white voters (71-17) and 67% of Hispanic voters (67-20). Younger voters were also less likely to believe it. Only 57% of voters 18-34 believed the statement (57-31), compared to 72% of voters 35 and older (72-16).
Even with these small variations, the results of this question indicate that there is a good starting point for making the national case for generating more political will for education. Voters believed a true statement about the challenges facing today’s students.
There is more work to be done to translate awareness of the problem into broad calls for action. But officials are taking encouraging actions. Last week San Francisco approved a plan to reinstate 8th grade algebra over a decade after the district removed the course from its middle school curriculum in an effort to promote equity. But that removal sparked an opposite effect. In 2024, 82% of San Franciscans voted to restore 8th grade algebra.
Voters in San Francisco wanted their students to be held to higher academic standards and have access to more challenging math, and voted for a measure that would help achieve that goal. We need a strategy to translate this desire nationwide. With almost 7 in 10 in the country believing that a significant portion of fourth graders are below basic in reading, part of the groundwork is already laid.
