Texas Voters Give Local Schools Higher Marks Than the State Overall, New TSU Survey Finds

When it comes to K-12 education, Texans tend to think more highly of the schools closest to home than of the system as a whole. A new report from the Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center at Texas Southern University finds that while a majority of registered voters rate their local school district's quality as either excellent or good, that approval drops noticeably when they are asked to assess public education across the state.

The gap is even more pronounced among parents. Those whose children attend private, charter, or home schools rate the quality of their child's education as excellent at nearly twice the rate of parents with children in traditional public schools. And younger generations — Millennials and Gen-Z — are considerably more optimistic about Texas public education than their older counterparts. The report also takes a close look at awareness of the newly launched Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFA) program, finding that while most parents have at least some familiarity with it, only one in five describe themselves as very familiar.

Written by Michael O. Adams and Mark P. Jones, this report offers one of the most comprehensive recent portraits of how Texans — as voters and as parents — think about the schools serving their communities. Whether you work in education policy, follow Texas politics, or simply want to understand where public opinion stands on school choice and educational quality, this report is well worth your time. Read the full report here.