We hear from parents and students all the time that public education has gotten worse since COVID, but now we have confirmation from public school teachers themselves from a recent Pew Research survey of 2,531 U.S. public K-12 teachers.

Teachers are reported to have lower levels of satisfaction in their jobs than the average American worker (52 percent say they would not advise a young person starting out today to become a teacher).

Nearly half the teachers say students at their school have poor academic performance and behavior. An overwhelming 80%, believe schools have gotten worse over the last five years, and about eight in ten teachers say the lasting impact of pandemic closures on students’ behavior, academic performance, and emotional well-being has been very or somewhat negative. Half of teachers say chronic absenteeism among their students is a major post-pandemic problem and persistent.

Perhaps most concerning is the fact that 82% say the overall state of public K-12 education has gotten worse in the past five years. (And it wasn’t very good five years ago!)

By the way, as performance has gotten worse, tax money into the schools adjusted for inflation has never been higher. More in, less out.

This dismal set of numbers from those in charge of the education of 90% of students indicates that a wholesale reinvention of public education is long overdue. School choice must be at the center of that new system – which is why we at CTUP have made it so central to our mission.