COVID States Project: Report 38- Public Perceptions of Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

[david lazer]

Just posted, with state-level data. A few highlights:

• Two thirds of respondents are at least somewhat concerned about the quality of the education they (if they are students) or their children (if they are parents) are receiving during the pandemic. This is true across partisan, racial, and income groups.
• A majority of parents of K-12 students indicate that their children learned less than they would have without the pandemic, including pluralities of primary school (grades K-5) parents and majorities of parents of middle (grades 6-8) and high (grades 9-12) school-age children. This also includes, at minimum, substantial pluralities, and in most instances majorities, across all demographic groups across all grade levels.
• We find some evidence of a socio-economic divide, with wealthy Americans more likely than other income groups to believe their high school-age children are learning less during the pandemic than other income groups. But this pattern does not extend to younger children.
• Sizeable majorities of respondents support prohibiting in-person classes for K-12 schools, while slightly smaller majorities support requiring students to take the COVID-19 vaccine prior to returning to the classroom. Support for such a requirement increases with income.
• Republicans are far less supportive than Democrats and Independents of either prohibiting in-person learning or requiring vaccines, while white respondents are less supportive than non-whites in both cases. 
• Majorities of respondents in 46 out of 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, support prohibiting in-person teaching in K-12 schools, while majorities in 35 states, plus the District of Columbia, support mandatory COVID-19 vaccines for children before they return to school. (Note that current vaccine efficacy clinical trials have not evaluated vaccines in individuals younger than 16 years old.)

David Lazer (pronounced Lazar)

he/him/his

University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Computer Sciences, Northeastern University

Visiting Scholar, Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University

Director of the Lazer Lab (pronounced Laser)

Co-Director, NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks

Co-founder, Volunteer Science, a behavioral research lab in the cloud

 

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