Parents on the left, right and center agree that schools should teach reading, writing, math and civics, writes David M. Houston, a George Mason professor who's been looking at education polls. A majority want schools to prepare students to be productive workers.
Beyond that, priorities diverge. Democrats want schools to do a lot more. The biggest gap comes in "teaching children the importance of embracing differences." While 74 percent of Democrats see this as a purpose of education, only 35 percent of Republicans agree.
Seventy percent of Americans and 64 percent of school-age children think schools are headed in the wrong direction, Houston writes.
In a Pew Research Center survey, which included a "not sure" option, 51 percent said schools were on the wrong track and only 16 percent said the education system is on the right track. Republicans blamed schools not spending enough time on core academic subjects (79%) and teachers are bringing their personal political and social views into the classroom (76%), while Democrats said schools need more funding (78%).
Republicans and Democrats differ the most on "issues related to systemic racism and gender identity," he writes. In the Understanding America Study, "Democrats are a whopping 47 percentage points more likely to support a high school assignment 'asking students to reflect on how discriminatory U.S. policies, like unfair housing practices and unequal access to healthcare, have negatively impacted Black and Hispanic Americans.' Similarly, Republicans are also 47 percentage points less likely to support high school discussions 'about how some people’s gender identities may not match their biological sex'.”
Most Americans agree that high schools should teach about "equal treatment regardless of skin color, how colonists harmed Native Americans, interracial marriage rights, how some white Americans opposed the civil rights movement, acting out civil rights demonstrations, slavery as the main cause of the Civil War, racial wealth gaps, and acknowledgments of the Native American tribes who once lived where the classroom now sits," Houston writes.
There was bipartisan support for high schoolers reading a heterosexual love story, but no consensus on LGBT texts.
Teaching about racism and sexuality in K-8 was much more contentious.
Teachers are split on these issues too, Pew reports. Half of public K-12 teachers oppose lessons on gender identity, one third said students should learn that someone’s gender can be different from the sex they were assigned at birth and 14 percent said biology determines sex.
It's amazing that only 14 per cent of American K-12 teachers know basic biology. The general education of American educators is pitifully narrow, and the above polling reflects that, since science isn't even mentioned among the 12 purposes that Americans were asked about, whereas it is explicitly assessed in programmes for the international assessment of young adult competencies, wherein young Americans compete very poorly.
In a competitive market in education services, the answer to the question: "What should schools teach?" would be the same as the answer to "What should restaurants serve?": "whatever the paying customer wants".
In the current legal/institutional environment, the realistic answer to the question: What is the purpose of schools?" is: "a make-work program for dues-paying members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel".