Veera Korhonen
Research expert covering United States data for society
K-12 education in the United States - statistics and facts
The K-12 education system, encompassing kindergarten through grade 12, represents the full spectrum of formal schooling designed to prepare students to attend higher education or enter the job market in the United States. Typically, children enter the K-12 system at five to six years of age and progress through three stages of study: elementary school (grades K-5), middle school (grades 6-8), and high school (grades 9-12). As education is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments in the U.S., years of compulsory education and curricula may differ from school to school. Additionally, although the majority of American students attend government-funded public schools, private school options are available for all grade levels. Despite high tuition fees, parents may choose to send their children to private schools to benefit from smaller class sizes and a more individualized experience. Ensuring a safe environment is also a main reason behind private school parents’ choice of school, likely due to the fact that public schools report higher rates of disciplinary problems, crime, and school shootings. In recent years, the American public school system has also been plagued by declining test scores, widespread teacher shortages, and a rise in state legislation restricting topics related to race and gender identity in K-12 classrooms and libraries.
According to a 2023 study, almost half of public K-12 teachers believed current debates over divisive topics negatively impacted their ability to do their job. Despite this negative impact, results revealed a majority of them still decided to limit discussion of such topics on their own, reasoning their institution might not support them if parents expressed concerns. Around half also agreed that parents should be allowed to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation and gender identity if it conflicts with their personal beliefs, while a quarter shared this belief for opting out of learning on racism and racial inequality. In that same year, however, evidence suggests that the students themselves were not as bothered by such topics; as of 2023, U.S. teens were most likely to say they felt neither comfortable nor uncomfortable when racism and racial inequality or sexual orientation and gender identity came up in class, although topics of racism and racial inequality were rated slightly more comfortable than those of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial inequalities in education continue to be revealed. Although lockdown measures led to learning loss for all students, this loss was greater for students of color, and even though reading and mathematics scores declined for nine-year-olds nationwide, these scores were lower for Black and Hispanic students. Additionally, despite the fact that teacher shortages have become a national phenomenon, public schools consisting mainly of students of color are still most likely to feel understaffed. Ultimately, as it is evident that educational disruption for people of color has become ingrained within the system, state governments may want to consider that enacting policies considered discriminatory for a certain group of people could cause more trouble in the future, particularly as the share of Americans identifying as LGBTQ+ has more than doubled within the last decade. Removing restrictions may also lessen the threat for teachers, who commonly cite confrontation with students' family members as one of the top reasons to fear for their physical safety at school.
Public school politics
In the United States, conservative policymakers and parents have been fighting to restrict teaching of ‘divisive topics’, such as racism, sex, gender identity, issues of systemic inequality, and the history of slavery, arguing that it is a parental right to decide what children learn at school. Recent research reveals that most Republican parents believe that children should either be taught that whether someone is a boy or girl is determined by sex at birth and that slavery is a part of American history but does not affect the position of Black people today, or that children should not be taught about these topics at all. Consequently, 18 states passed laws restricting schools from teaching divisive topics between 2021 and 2023, with only seven states yet to introduce any such state-level action. At the same time, U.S. public schools witnessed thousands of instances of book bans, many of which dealt with LGBTQ+ and race-related themes and characters.According to a 2023 study, almost half of public K-12 teachers believed current debates over divisive topics negatively impacted their ability to do their job. Despite this negative impact, results revealed a majority of them still decided to limit discussion of such topics on their own, reasoning their institution might not support them if parents expressed concerns. Around half also agreed that parents should be allowed to opt their children out of learning about sexual orientation and gender identity if it conflicts with their personal beliefs, while a quarter shared this belief for opting out of learning on racism and racial inequality. In that same year, however, evidence suggests that the students themselves were not as bothered by such topics; as of 2023, U.S. teens were most likely to say they felt neither comfortable nor uncomfortable when racism and racial inequality or sexual orientation and gender identity came up in class, although topics of racism and racial inequality were rated slightly more comfortable than those of sexual orientation and gender identity.
Inequalities in education
In some states, this push for classroom censorship has also included proposals to restrict transgender students from using their preferred pronouns, participating in school sports, and using bathrooms consistent with their gender. Studies show that these gendered practices can have a significant impact on the lives of LGBTQ+ students, to the point where they consider dropping out of school. As a result, LGBTQ+ advocates consider such school policies discriminatory and disruptive on the educational aspirations of LGBTQ+ youth, who already struggle with high rates of harassment at school, citing concerns of creating hostile learning environments which encourage race-and sex-based abuse. Similarly, people of color have consistently faced worse educational outcomes due to discrimination; as decades of discriminatory practices led to lower income levels, people of color are often situated in neighborhoods where schools have less resources compared to majority-White schools.Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial inequalities in education continue to be revealed. Although lockdown measures led to learning loss for all students, this loss was greater for students of color, and even though reading and mathematics scores declined for nine-year-olds nationwide, these scores were lower for Black and Hispanic students. Additionally, despite the fact that teacher shortages have become a national phenomenon, public schools consisting mainly of students of color are still most likely to feel understaffed. Ultimately, as it is evident that educational disruption for people of color has become ingrained within the system, state governments may want to consider that enacting policies considered discriminatory for a certain group of people could cause more trouble in the future, particularly as the share of Americans identifying as LGBTQ+ has more than doubled within the last decade. Removing restrictions may also lessen the threat for teachers, who commonly cite confrontation with students' family members as one of the top reasons to fear for their physical safety at school.
