Is Education in Decline?

A Pew Research Center survey from November 2023 shows that 82 percent of polled K-12 teachers in public schools think that the education system is in a worse state than five years ago, with a further 11 percent seeing the situation as stagnant. Their outlook on the future is more positive, with 20 percent claiming it will become a lot or somewhat better in the next five years. The survey results reflect current problems of the public school systems, from increased violence against teachers post-pandemic to insufficient pay and shortages of qualified educators.

According to two scientific surveys of teachers and educators conducted by the American Psychological Association at the height of the pandemic in August 2020 and again after many restrictions were lifted two years later, the share of teachers reporting at least one case of verbal harassment or threatening student behavior increased from 65 percent in the first to 80 percent in the second survey. Instances of physical violence were also up significantly, especially concerning parents of students, with a quarter of all educators polled reporting violent incidents involving parents post-pandemic, up from one percent prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Another significant factor impacting the quality of education in the U.S. is a shortage of teachers. While up-to-date numbers are hard to come by, a team of researchers from Annenberg Brown University aggregated and analyzed all available state-level data and compiled their findings into a report in August 2022. The team found at least 36,000 vacant positions and 163,000 positions being staffed with teachers from a different field or otherwise underqualified for teaching the required subjects. According to the researchers, these numbers are likely very conservative. 

They do, however, track with the general sentiment towards the teaching profession in the U.S. According to the University of Chicago research organization NORC, 44 percent of adults polled in the fall of 2022 would not encourage their children or other young people to become a teacher, with major barriers to a recommendation being "low teacher pay (69 percent), lack of school resources (57 percent), and high workload (52 percent)". So for the situation of education to improve in the U.S. as 20 percent of polled teachers in the Pew Research survey expect, sweeping adjustments would need to be made in not just one, but many aspects of the teaching profession.