Porter Magee: It’s up to education advocates and policymakers to look past the gloom and recognize the opportunity this moment presents.
by Mark Porter MageeThe 74
This story appeared first 74A non-profit news site covering education. Sign up for the free newsletter from The 74 Get more like this in your inbox.
Given the drumbeat of headlines about everything that seems to be going wrong in America, this is perhaps an inconvenient time to point out how many things are starting to go right in American education. Yet that is exactly what we get in the second edition State of Educational Opportunity in America Survey.
Developed through a partnership between 50CAN and Edge Research, Survey The survey contains the opinions of more than 23,000 parents across all 50 states and Washington, DC, based on more than 20,000 parents surveyed in the summer of 2024. What we’ve got is an education system that’s being made better by making experiences traditionally reserved for the wealthiest among us available to more families.
That starts with schooling. Historically in America, the wealthy have taken advantage of the range of choices in schools that have unlocked their resources while most families have had to make do with only one option. But with the huge expansion of school choice programs in the past few years, more working- and middle-class families are taking control of their children’s education, and it shows: The percentage of parents who say they think they have a choice in which school their child goes to is up five points, from 65% to 70%.
In line with this shift, we also found that the percentage of parents who say, if they had it to do over again, that they would send their child to the school they attend today also increased by four points, from 64% to 68%. Finally, the percentage of parents reporting they are very satisfied with their child’s school increased by two points, and the percentage reporting they are very satisfied with the mental and emotional health their child receives at school increased by four points.
Another area of real progress from 2024 is the participation of high school students in career pathways. Affluent children have traditionally had a leg up in this area but with leadership at the state and local levels, more opportunities are being created for more children from all walks of life.
The number of families who say their children are participating in pathway programs increased across the board: participation in dual enrollment courses, CTE programs and industry certifications all increased by three points while internships and apprenticeships increased by six points. At the same time, we have seen an increase in demand for these programs, ranging from two to five points, with one child not currently enrolled, suggesting future growth in demand on the horizon.
Tutoring represents a third area of promising growth. When the children of the rich fall behind, they always know they can get the help they need to get their child back. Now those same resources are reaching more students, regardless of income. Overall, the percentage of children receiving tutoring in the past year increased five points from 19% to 24%. At the same time, the tuition gap between low-income children and high-income children narrowed from 12 points to just eight points.
Will this trend continue? If the parents have something to say about it, they will say so. We found that 86% of parents favor free tutoring for any K-12 student who falls behind, 80% favor free summer camp for K-12 students, 77% favor open enrollment so that any student can transfer to the public school of their choice, and 77% favor universal ESAs, where any parent can use an account to pay from government tuition book to tuition book.
Now it’s up to education advocates and policymakers to look past the gloom of the daily headlines and recognize the opportunity this moment presents. We have come out of the pandemic with a stronger sense of purpose around the ways in which education needs to change. We’ve seen these changes take root in states around the country. And it’s clear that parents of all political stripes want us to go further to make these initial steps a permanent part of the American educational landscape.
We have an opportunity this year to secure policy wins that will get headlines for all the right reasons, with a focus less on ideological battles and more on real changes that will improve the lives of students.
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This is the story is produced by 74A nonprofit, independent news organization focused on education in America.
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