Pew Research: Majority of Teachers Believe States Have Too Much Influence

February 22, 2024 TruthUSA

According to a new poll from Pew Research Center, most teachers believe that state governments, local school boards, and parents have a significant influence on the subject matter in school courses.

The ongoing debates about sensitive topics like race and gender identity in public K-12 schools have not significantly impacted most teachers’ ability to do their jobs. Here are the percentages:

53% said there is no positive or negative impact on their ability to teach from ongoing debates about the teaching of certain topics.

41% said they have had a somewhat or very negative impact from those debates.

4% said those debates have had a very or somewhat positive impact on their ability to teach.

Additionally, most teachers feel that educators and students don’t have sufficient influence over what’s being taught in their local public schools. Here are the percentages:

1% said teachers have too much influence over what’s being taught, 26% said they have the right amount, and 71% said they do not have enough influence.

58% said their state government has too much influence over what’s being taught, 35% said they have the right amount, and 5% said that they do not have enough influence.

45% said the federal government has too much influence, 42% said they have the right amount, and 10% said they do not have enough influence.

38% said their local school board has too much influence, 51% said they have the right amount, and 9% said they do not have enough influence.

32% said parents have too much influence, 47% said they have the right amount, and 19% said they do not have enough influence.

8% said students have too much influence, 26% said they have the right amount, and 41% said they do not have enough influence.

The survey’s demographic data also showed that teachers who identified as Democrats were more likely to say that parents and their local school board had too much influence, while teachers who identified as Republicans were more likely to say that the federal government had too much influence.

The poll was conducted among 2,531 K-12 public school teachers across the United States from Oct. 17- Nov. 14, 2023, with a margin of error of +/- 2.4 percentage points.