Share of K-12 parents considering new schools more than doubled last year, poll finds

The percentage of parents who considered sending their children to new schools more than doubled last year, an annual poll has found.

The nonprofit National School Choice Awareness Foundation reported Tuesday that the share of K-12 parents who weighed changing schools surged from 35% in 2022 to 72% in 2023.

Another 56.7% said they were likely to choose a “different school or learning environment” in 2024, compared to 43.6% of parents with more than one child who considered such changes last year.

A summary of the findings noted that parents increasingly see school choice as “the new normal” in the aftermath of pandemic lockdowns of public schools and related learning losses. That includes a growing openness to moving children to public, charter, magnet, private, online, home and nontraditional schools their parents did not attend.

“Every parent wants their children to succeed and be happy, and they know that every child has unique needs and interests,” said Andrew Campanella, the foundation’s president and CEO. “Since the pandemic, parents have shifted their preference away from finding specific types of schools, and instead focused on selecting schools that –– regardless of their structure or how they are funded –– best fit their children’s needs.”

According to the survey, 59% of parents who made changes last year said they had picked something different than the type of school they attended.

The findings come as Department of Education statistics show K-12 students fell behind significantly in English and math proficiency during pandemic-related virtual learning arrangements. Enrollment in public schools plunged as many parents switched to other forms of schooling during the restrictions.

This year’s survey found that just 29% of parents said the same type of school works well for all of their children. More than 6 in 10 expressed a desire for more information about educational alternatives.

Among parents who had explored other schooling arrangements, 51.3% said they considered traditional public schools in their zones or neighborhoods, 29.2% weighed public schools outside their zones or neighborhoods, 28.3% flirted with public charter schools and 14.8% thought about public magnet schools.

Another 24.4% said they considered private or faith-based schools, 21.8% pondered full-time online schooling and 19.9% thought about homeschooling. Finally, 6% considered microschooling, also known as “mix-and-match learning,” in which children attend mixed-age classrooms for just part of the week.

The National School Choice Awareness Foundation released the survey ahead of National School Choice Week, which it sponsors. That event falls on Jan. 21-27.

The advocacy group surveyed 2,595 parents of children aged 5-18 in two waves through Survey Monkey’s National Audience panel on Jan. 2-4. The margin of error for the online polling was plus or minus 2 percentage points.