Black and Hispanic Voters Say Democrats Aren’t Focused Enough on K-12 Education

This story was produced by The 74, a non-profit, independent news organization focused on education in America.

Congressional Democrats are at risk of shedding a critical voting bloc in swing states: Black and Hispanic voters who say their concerns about improving public education and increasing access to schools beyond their zip codes are falling on deaf ears.

While a slight majority of Black and Hispanic voters say they still trust Democrats more than Republicans on the issue of education, more than two-thirds say they do not think Democrats are focused enough on improving K-12 schools, according to a new poll.

The shot across the bow comes as Democrats seek to maintain their slim Senate majority and nab four seats to take control of the House in November. Polls have shown more or less a dead heat in the race for the House for months – though calculations in both chambers are somewhat scrambled in the wake of President Joe Biden stepping aside to anoint Vice President Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee and the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.

“Black and Hispanic voters view and experience education differently, particularly parents, and the data shows that they strongly believe that public schools are failing children of their race,” says Cornell Belcher, president of Democratic polling firm Brilliant Corners. “Improving K-12 schools is a top issue concern they want their elected officials focused on and they overwhelmingly believe that Democrats are not focused enough on the issue of education.”

Brilliant Corners performed the survey between June 4 and June 17 on behalf of Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, and polled more than 800 Black and Hispanic likely voters in seven swing states, including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“It’s quite frustrating as someone who lives in the city of Atlanta and who does vote that you often don’t see our elected officials have even been paying attention to education until something tragic happens,” says Keisha Spells, who has spent nearly two decades working with families as a community engagement specialist in the public school system, and whose own four children attended Atlanta’s public schools.

“In 17 years, I have seen families in complete frustration,” she says. “I’ve watched failing schools remain open and fail more kids. You have to ask yourself: Are we failing generations now, as the grandmother, mother and now the child, all are unsuccessfully reading at [a] third grade [level]?”

“They know that this isn’t right and that their kids need something more, but they don’t know how to advocate for it.”

For decades, voters overwhelmingly trusted Democrats over Republicans on the issue of education. But that trust has eroded in recent years, especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, when K-12 schools across the country shuttered, some for more than an entire academic year. The impact of those closures disproportionately fell on Black and Hispanic students and students from low-income families, and their academic recovery has been painfully slow as a result.

The new poll shows that a quarter of all respondents say they trust neither party on education issues or don’t know who to trust. Over a third, 36%, of Black voters who also identify as public school parents trust neither party, and roughly a quarter of Hispanic voters trust Republicans more than Democrats.

“Democratic leaders have an opportunity here to better position themselves in these important battleground states with this key base constituency by addressing their concerns about how the school system is serving their communities and elevating education as a national issue and priority,” Belcher says.

As it relates to specific education policy issues, 91% of the survey’s respondents say parents deserve the right to choose the public school that best meets their child’s individual needs, and 68% agree that children in their neighborhood would be able to get a better education if they could attend a different school outside their current zip code.

Nearly the same percentage, 67%, agree that most children who graduate from their assigned public school aren’t yet ready for college or the workforce.The vast majority of those polled also say they support increasing funding for public schools, including public charter schools, increasing teacher pay, hiring more diverse teachers and school leaders and including more Black and Latino history in curricula.

“We really wanted to hear from Black and Latino swing voters because this is an opportunity for lawmakers to hear what their constituents want and need,” says Jay Artis-Wright, the executive director of Freedom Coalition for Charter Schools, which advocates for equitable access to quality public school options for Black and Brown communities.

“Here are the lived experiences of swing voters and here is an opportunity for lawmakers to know exactly how they feel,” she says.  “The clear message is that education is a priority for us and the data is showing that not only do we want education, we prioritize public education.”

Notably, Republicans in many of the same swing states where Black and Hispanic voters were polled – Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – have capitalized on parental frustrations over public schools in the wake of the pandemic. Several Republicans are calling for more choices by passing legislation that establishes or significantly expands private school choice programs, including education savings accounts, tax credit scholarships and voucher programs.

The poll shows that while Black and Hispanic swing state voters generally support private school choice programs, their support is contingent upon ensuring that  funding for these programs isn’t shifted from public school budgets and  that the schools don’t discriminate based on values or beliefs of students and staff. They’re much more enthusiastic about increasing funding for public schools and creating more public school choices, including charter schools.

“Republicans have been a little bit more out ahead on the issue, but our Black and Latino voters favor Democrats and trust Democrats more on education,” Artis-Wright says. “And at the same time, feel like they could be doing more.”

“We don’t want to do the us versus them narrative,” she says about public schools versus private schools. “But the reality is that they want more options. And that’s a huge issue coming out of the pandemic because we can’t just focus on this monolithic traditional public school. We cannot do this anymore and everyone is yelling about it.”

The poll is hardly the first to pick up on the increasing frustration among Black and Hispanic voters on the issue of K-12 education, including as it relates to calls for more funding and more choices. Similar sentiment has rippled through polling commissioned by the National Parents Union, a parent-led advocacy organization.

“Parents have been really clear about wanting something different,” says Keri Rodrigues, founding president of the National Parents Union. “Upwards of 90% of people say parents deserve the right to choose the public option that best meets their child’s individual needs. You see it in this poll, you see it in our poll. We couldn’t be clearer about this.”

“Education for us is the pathway to economic mobility,” she says about Black and Hispanic parents. “We don’t see schools actually keeping pace with that and that is why you’re seeing a lot of movement among parents seeking alternatives and having this consistent outcry of wanting something different.”