Across the Aisle Report 2024: Bridging the Education Divides

Finding Commonalities in Bipartisan Education Priorities 

Education is returning to a sense of normalcy, but as education issues remain in the headlines, parents, voters, and students are left dealing with both new and persistent problems.   

2024 marks the continuance of education in the headlines and minds of Americans across the nation. As the United States recovers from pandemic learning, graduation rates have stabilized, while reading and math scores continue to decline. Furthermore, classrooms are increasingly politicized. Debates over school choice and Artificial Intelligence consume national media, although parent involvement, book bans, and the teaching of race have become less popular topics. In light of the recent election, it is important to know parents’ and voters’ stances on education issues and whether they match national conversations.  

This year, The Hunt Institute presents its third Across the Aisle: Bridging the Education Divide, a report that dives deeper into public perceptions around key educational issues. The Across the Aisle survey, created in 2020, aims to create a bipartisan understanding of parents’ and voters’ priorities in education, allowing policymakers to put priorities into policy.  

The survey, created in collaboration with Lake Research Partners, gathers opinions from parents and voters on various education topics, including career readiness, school safety, extracurricular activities, and parental involvement. The Hunt Institute, with generous support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, is proud to present findings from the 2024 nationwide survey of parents and voters, bridging the political divide between important education stakeholders.   

Parents and Voters have a clear set of Core Values for education. Despite growing concerns over a politically divided country, our 2024 survey found meaningful agreement across demographic groups regarding education proposals.  

Parents and Voters are optimistic about community schools, but pessimistic about nationwide education. Parents and voters are optimistic about their local community schools but feel pessimistic overall about the education system in the country. While 54 percent of parents rate their community schools positively, 50 percent believe that national efforts to prepare children for the future are fair or poor. Historically, parents and voters tend to have a more favorable view of their local schools. In 2023, 53 percent of parents and voters said their local public schools were doing a good or excellent job compared to 36 percent of schools nationwide.  

Voters nationally want to set up students to build foundations for future education and employment. Ninety-five percent of parents agree it is important for students to get an education that prepares them for a career post-high school. However, voters and parents are more likely to agree public schools nationwide and in their communities are not doing a good job preparing students for the future.  

Voters see meeting teachers’ needs and students’ needs as intertwined.  Parents and voters highly favor ensuring students have access to high quality teachers and that teachers have the resources to succeed. They believe “we should all support our neighborhood public schools, be on the side of our teachers, and make things better for all our kids.” 

Big bucket education problems in the media do not match Parent and Voter priorities. Although issues like requiring students to use the bathroom and locker rooms that match their biological sex, book bans, and teaching about race, gender, and sexuality are hot issues in the media, they fall to the bottom of the list for parents and voters.   

Sixty-nine percent of voters and 65 percent of parents strongly favor increasing job skills and workforce training opportunities in high school, like internship opportunities and apprenticeships. Parents and voters also want schools to teach skills necessary for adulthood and the workforce. 70 percent of voters and 63 percent of parents strongly favor teaching students’ skills like communication, decision-making, financial literacy, or personal responsibility.   

Policy Considerations  

• How can states best prepare students for higher education and the workforce through career and education pathways?  

• In what ways can states ensure that teachers have the adequate resources, development, and support necessary do their job well? 

• What strategies can states utilize to ensure that all students have opportunities to explore their interests through extracurriculars? 

• What ways can policymakers enact policies that focus on parents’ and voters’ top priorities, like ensuring schools are free of guns and other physical violence? 

The Hunt Institute will continue to use the Across the Aisle results to facilitate important conversations about supporting teachers and students in congruence with parent and voter values.   

About Across the Aisle 

Supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Hunt Institute’s Across the Aisle initiative connects public needs to policymakers by collecting firsthand experiences, perceptions, and priorities from the public and translating them into actionable, nonpartisan policies that will fundamentally change education for the better. As part of this work, The Hunt Institute has produced several resources and convenings, including: 

• An annual public opinion survey further capturing the challenges, perceptions, and priorities of voters and parents. 

• Policy briefs, blog posts, and op-ed publications that highlight key education issues and solutions for recovery. 

• Webinars highlighting public priority topics, stakeholder engagement, and our survey findings. 

• Convenings with state education leaders to create actionable solutions to state-specific issues. 

The 2024 Across the Aisle Survey was conducted in September 2024 and reached a total of 1,310 likely 2024 voters, which includes a base sample of 800 likely voters and oversamples of 100 African American likely voters, 100 Asian American Pacific Islander likely voters, 100 Latino/a likely voters, 100 Native American likely voters, and 110 likely voters who are parents of school-aged children. 

Learn more about Across the Aisle and access the full report here.