Poll: 6 in 10 percent of parents rate local schools highly despite GOP efforts to fan outrage over race and masks
As Republican politicians from Virginia to Wisconsin stoke conservative outrage toward local school leaders over hot-button social issues and COVID-19 restrictions, a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll suggests that most Americans actually like their local schools and trust their local school boards, not parents, to decide what happens in the classroom.
The survey of 1,704 U.S. adults, which was conducted from Oct. 19 to 21, comes as national Republicans have seized upon the “parents matter” messaging of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin — who has sought to transform schools into a cultural war zone by railing against racial and gender equity initiatives and public-health measures — as a possible template for the rest of the party heading into the 2022 midterms.
Youngkin opposes school mask mandates and has promised to ban what he calls “critical race theory” on his first day in office. Local school boards in states such as Florida have also been the target of vocal opposition and even harassment from conservative parents and activists who are upset by the same policies.
Yet according to the poll, a full 60 percent of parents with kids under 18 rate their local schools as either good or excellent; just 34 percent rate them either poor or fair. Republicans feel much the same way: 55 percent say their schools are good or excellent while just 33 percent say they’re poor or fair.
And far from disagreeing with Youngkin’s Democratic opponent Terry McAuliffe — who has said he does not believe that “parents should be telling schools what they should teach” — Americans think it’s “mostly the Board of Education” (47 percent) that ought to determine the curriculum, as opposed to “mostly parents” (29 percent).
Likewise, 38 percent of Americans say parents should have “more” influence over instruction “than they have now” — while a larger share say either “the same as they have now” (30 percent) or less (14 percent).
A wide majority of Americans (56 percent) also agree that students and staff should be required to mask up in school when Delta is surging, versus 29 percent who say they shouldn’t and 15 percent who aren’t sure.
But while the crossover appeal of a “parents matter” strategy might be limited, there are signs it could help Republicans mobilize their base. For instance, nearly three-quarters of 2020 Donald Trump voters (72 percent) say parents should have more influence over curriculum than they have now. A full 60 percent of Trump voters think it’s “mostly parents” who should determine what’s taught in classrooms. And even more (62 percent) say students and staff shouldn’t have to cover their faces in school during a Delta surge.
At the same time, recognition of the phrase Critical Race Theory — the name of a graduate-level approach to race studies that conservatives have used to mislabel any attempt to discuss systemic racism in K-12 classrooms — is slightly higher now (57 percent) than it was in June (52 percent), while the number of Americans who say the U.S. has a problem with systemic racism has fallen from 58 percent to 55 percent over the same period.
Yet Republicans also risk a backlash by pushing too hard. If Americans agree on anything about U.S. schools as a whole, it’s that they have become “too politicized” (69 percent) by "national debates over race, gender and COVID-19.”
To be sure, more Republicans than anyone else (84 percent) are currently convinced that schools have become too politicized, and nearly all of them (88 percent) say “liberals” deserve the most blame. But it’s worth noting that two-thirds of Democrats (66 percent) also think schools have become too politicized, and nearly all of them (76 percent) say “conservatives” deserve the most blame. Most independents say conservatives (58 percent) and liberals (69 percent) both deserve at least some blame for politicizing schools.
Those are big numbers across the board. It’s true that Republicans may rile up Trump voters this fall and next by disparaging school officials. But right now, just 39 percent of Americans say schools in their own area have become too politicized — 30 points less than the share who say they’ve become too politicized on a national level. The more Republicans attack specific schools in specific communities, the more resistance they might arouse.
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