Half of Americans think we should be at least somewhat worried about the impact of falling birth rates on society, according to the fielded in September.

Mary Aured, a 65-year-old based in Florida, indicated in the poll that she was “very worried” about the country’s falling birth rate and told The 19th: “I’m desperately afraid that there will not be a generation that can support the generation above it.”

Aured, a member of the Baby Boomer generation who identified as Republican or Republican-leaning, said she thinks people still want to have kids but simply can’t afford it. She pointed to her 28-year-old daughter and 30-year-old son.

“My son wants to get married, but he’s questioning having children because of the economic cost of it,” Aured said. “And my daughter just moved in with us because she lost her job.”

Joe Stock, 65, also said he was “very worried” about the falling birth rate and “strongly agreed” that society should return to traditional gender roles. For Stock, an Independent voter in Connecticut who supports President Donald Trump, it is more of a cultural issue: Young people’s life trajectories and mindsets are “night and day” compared with his youth.

“The idea of family now is basically nonexistent or in some circles, it exists but with a twisted, abnormal and counter-growth kind of an approach,” said Stock. For him, the traditional nuclear family — consisting of a man, woman and children — is the “very foundation and the bedrock of society.”

The 19th News/SurveyMonkey Poll was conducted online from September 8-15, 2025, among a national sample of 20,807 U.S. adults 18 and older. It has an error estimate of ±1.0 percent.

The 19th spoke with survey respondents, academics and experts about why so many people are concerned about falling birth rates, historical echoes and how the Trump administration’s policies further the message.

First: Are birth rates falling in the United States?

Yes. In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that the nation’s fertility rate hit a record low of 1.6. That’s about what it was in the 1970s, after rates rose to 3.7 during the baby boom. Experts generally agree that a total fertility rate, or average number of births over the birthing population’s lifetime, should hover around 2.1 for a population to replace itself solely through reproduction.

The changes are part of a long-running international trend.

Experts say a have impacted the birth rate, which has dropped significantly from the first half of the 20th century. Women’s — the pill was approved in 1960, and abortion availability rose after Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 — as well as rising participation in the workforce and pursuit of higher education meant people were choosing to have kids later. The costs of child care, insurance coverage and all impact decisions on whether to have kids, and at what age.

Still, according to the World Bank, the United States has one of the higher fertility rates . Low fertility rates in countries such as and have caused international panic about aging populations. Economists worry about the impact falling birth rates will have on the future job market, or whether there will be enough caretakers for the older generation. Tax revenue , as well as gross domestic product.

Who is most worried about the country’s birth rate? 

Nearly every demographic group expresses anxiety about falling birth rates. Breaking the 19th News/SurveyMonkey poll down across racial and ethnic lines shows little variance — about half of all groups are worried.

There is a strong gender divide. Men are more concerned than women, 58 percent versus 48 percent. Fifty-eight percent of White men are concerned, compared with 45 percent of White women, who are the least concerned of all race and gender breakdowns.

Republicans tend to be more concerned than Democrats or Independents, but significant portions of people across parties say they are worried about birth rates.

What is motivating the fear of falling birth rates?

The partisan differences, paired with , hint at deeper concerns expressed through the fear of falling birth rates.

Joshua Wilson, a political science professor at the University of Denver, said national identity is a “real obsession” with the rise of conservatism across the world.

“Fear of birth rates is a way of feeding into this anxiety of national identity, who we are and how we are being threatened,” Wilson said. “Just look at the words of MAGA itself: Make America Great Again. It’s a very conservative view because it’s saying that in the past, there was a kind of ideal America and we’ve been knocked off track. We need to reestablish that old identity — even if it’s a myth.”

The anxiety is closely tied to anti-immigration policies as well. Immigration could be seen as a solution to the falling birth rate — but opponents connect migration with a loss of culture, loss of control in democratic institutions and loss of status.

For the right, Wilson said, “the question becomes, how do we win back the culture through majorities? How do we win elections and guarantee future elections? We make majorities through procreation — it is a kind of really basic arithmetic.”

What is pronatalism?

Pronatalism is the promotion of reproduction in a population, and today more commonly refers to the belief that a steady birth rate is essential to a stable society. Historically, it’s often a result of the fear of falling birth rates and a loss of national identity.

As women fought for suffrage and expanded social rights in the United States, pronatalism was a reactive force.

“There’s this linkage between women’s educational and aspirational futures and the declining birth rate,” Laura Lovett, author of “Conceiving the Future: Pronatalism, Reproduction, and the Family in the United States, 1890-1930,” earlier this year. She said President Theodore Roosevelt blamed young White women going to college for

How else have pronatalist ideas been linked to nationalism and extremism?

Pronatalism is often entwined with eugenics, and authoritarian regimes have often capitalized on this. In the leadup to World War II, the Nazi party discouraged single “Aryan” women from having abortions and tasked German women with birthing enough “pure” children to take over the continent. Officials to honor women based on the number of children they had.

These attitudes can rear their head in any nationalist movement. The Black Panthers and Nation of Islam were “staunchly opposed to abortion or any other form of reproductive control, even if voluntarily chosen,” wrote historian Jennifer A. Nelson in an article about .

“These nationalists insisted that by increasing their numbers, people of color would gain political power,” she wrote. “They called upon women to bear children as their contribution to the Black Power movement.”

Wombs are essential to ethnic nationalist movements, and pronatalist messaging can emphasize traditional gender roles as a way to contribute to a larger project. Historically, a lot of pronatalist messaging was anti-feminist. Seyward Darby, journalist and author of “Sisters In Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism,” said pronatalism was wielded in the service of subjugating women by keeping them constrained to the home.

At the same time that White women won suffrage in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was recruiting them into the white supremacist movement. The KKK was founded on the idea that White women needed protection from Black men, Darby said, and that was very tied to the idea that “their purpose, politically, socially, was to have babies.” Klan messaging focused on the importance of White mothers as keepers of history and tradition for the White race, she said.

Concerns over White birth rates have been used to justify extremist, racist violence in recent years too. That includes a 2019 attack in New Zealand in which 51 people were killed by a White Australian man who expressed concern over a shrinking White population and a 2022 shooting in Buffalo, New York, in which the shooter killed 14 and cited the that foments fear about the extinction of the White race due to rising populations of people of color.

How partisan is the discussion about declining birth rates?

Democrats and Republican platforms differ greatly in their proposals to address falling birth rates. In general, progressives tend to talk about family planning in more economic terms as an affordability issue, while conservatives see it as a need for a certain cultural identity, typically with religious undertones.

Sixty-five percent of Trump voters are worried about falling birth rates, compared with 45 percent of Kamala Harris voters, and the numbers are similar for Republicans and Democrats.

Wilson pointed to — a 920-page conservative presidential policy blueprint authored by the Heritage Foundation — as a key in understanding the modern American pronatalism movement. Its first and foremost recommendation is to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.” The second is to “dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American people” — an approach that rejects policies like universal day care.

“This movement captures the classic conservative tension between the family ideal and the intervening dangerous state,” said Wilson, whose research focus includes abortion politics and modern American conservatism. “But when you cut out all the social supports, then what’s the subtext there? Who do you want to be producing?”

Still, a significant portion of progressive Americans, including LGBTQ+ people (43 percent) and Gen Z women (51 percent), are concerned about the nation’s fertility rate. The left tends to address the problem through the lens of affordability and strengthening the social safety net.

Is the Trump administration pushing pronatalist policies? 

Yes. Pronatalist rhetoric creeps into the policy and talking points from members of the Trump administration. President Trump called himself the “fertilization president” on the campaign trail, promising free in vitro fertilization for all, and Vice President JD Vance The secretary of transportation, who is a father of nine, to prioritize projects that “give preference to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average.”

Tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk, the , decried the country’s fertility rate, , “a collapsing birth rate is the biggest danger civilization faces by far.” There is a specific strain of pronatalism among tech elites that advocates for the use of assistive reproductive technologies to engineer the smartest kids possible.

In a recent report,“,” the National Women’s Law Center expressed caution about policies like $1,000 baby bonds and that are coming from the administration. (The IVF proposal of Trump campaign-trail promise to make insurance companies cover the procedure.)

Amy K. Matsui, the vice president for child care & income security at the center, said there’s strong evidence that these policies are meant to benefit certain people, particularly the White and more affluent.

“We’re seeing the confluence of a purported concern about birth rates being used to advance an agenda, which is really about exercising control over women’s bodies, over gender roles, over women’s role in public life,” Matsui said.

Matsui said she sees the Trump administration’s pronatalist policies as part of “a shrinking government that literally makes it harder for people to make ends meet.” She added there are “flaws and dangers” to encouraging a “traditional family structure where women are not in the workforce but are staying home and primarily responsible for caregiving.”

Matsui pointed to the , which is disproportionately women and people of color; the during the ; and and women’s health.

At the same time that the administration is encouraging more births, Matsui said it is also dismantling structures that support families and make it harder for certain women to have choices around family planning.

“There’s a really strong kind of racial thread going through this as well because these policies are paired with opposition to immigration, an underlying concern about the wrong kind of people having children — which includes non-White people, non-heterosexual people, people who are not in traditional marriage structures,” Matsui said.

How do religion and traditional gender roles play a role in pushing pronatalist messaging? 

Anxiety over birth rates is more present among religions that emphasize traditional gender roles, the importance of families and a lack of effective contraception. Mormons (69 percent), evangelical Christians (65 percent), Orthodox Christians (63 percent), Catholics (59 percent) and Muslims (59 percent) are most likely to worry about the impact of low fertility.

Wilson said it’s impossible to discuss the modern conservative movement without acknowledging the prominence of white Evangelicals and now conservative Catholics in the Republican Party. The party is reflecting those values, he said, referencing the high value that the Christian right places on traditional and growing families and pointing specifically to the .

“Once that happened, it created this void,” Wilson said. “The big defining issue of decades fundamentally changed, and it disrupted boundaries and created this space that needed to be filled. So that’s why we get that and why we’re talking about natalism, gender roles and reproduction.”

According to those who are concerned, what are potential solutions?

It’s something people in many countries are considering. Christina Scott, a professor of psychological sciences at Whittier College who taught in Japan as a Fulbright Scholar for five months, said she asked young women in Japan about their feelings around having children. The country’s birth rate is lower than that in the United States, and for many, financial circumstances caused hesitation. That’s despite the fact that Japan offers incentives including a , , cash payments per childbirth, parenting classes and monthly subsidies to parents with children younger than 15.

“There’s so many things that would help level the playing field, but so much of the responsibility of children falls primarily to mothers,” Scott said. “Many women are trying to make the determination between child care, education and careers. And different parties will call this selfish, but we don’t call it selfish when men have these determinations.”

Many Americans pointed to child care as a key issue.

Rafael, a 45-year-old father of two who asked to be identified by only his first name due to his job, is concerned about falling birth rates. He said he and his wife originally weren’t going to have kids because of the cost, but with some careful budgeting realized they could afford it. His family lives nearby and frequently helps with child care, but primary care for his eldest still costs $15,000 a year.

That cost plus little parental leave from work were major concerns; Rafael took three weeks of vacation and his wife had six weeks of leave when their child was born. He thinks at least six months of fully paid parental leave would ease the transition between work and parenting. He thinks the United States should invest in families stateside, instead of sending money to Israel or spending money on “LGBT or whatever.”

Rafael, along with other survey responders, praised pro-family policies in European countries. “The Scandinavian countries have it really figured out,” said Catherine Campbell, an 85-year-old retiree in Santa Monica, California. “They have wonderful care for kids.”

Campbell said on the survey she was worried about falling birth rates, but in an interview clarified that the population size does not concern her. She said it was expensive for governments to subsidize child care, but it is worth it.

was originally reported by Mariel Padilla and Jasmine Mithani of . Meet and and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Chalkbeat Ideas is a new section featuring reported columns on the big ideas and debates shaping American schools. to follow our work.

Democrats are in disarray on education — according to a growing chorus of Democrats.

A variety of left-leaning , , and have all recently claimed that voters have become disillusioned with the party’s approach to schools. Often, these commentators cite anger over pandemic-era closures and argue that Democrats need to embrace tougher academic standards or school choice.

“For decades, when pollsters asked voters which party they trusted more on education, Democrats maintained, on average, a 14-point advantage. More recently that gap closed, then flipped to favor Republicans,” former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel last month.

Is this emerging conventional wisdom true, though? This assertion has typically relied on one or two surveys, rather than a comprehensive look at the data. So I compiled all publicly available polls I could find that asked voters which party they preferred on education.

The verdict was clear: In more than a dozen surveys conducted this year by eight different organizations, all but one showed Democrats with an edge on education. This ranged from 4 to 15 points. Among all 14 polls, the median advantage was 9 points. Although Democrats appear to have briefly lost this edge a few years ago, voters again now tend to trust Democrats on the issue of education, broadly defined.

The narrative that Republicans had wrested the issue of education from Democrats emerged in 2021, after Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin won a in the governor’s race after campaigning on parents’ rights.

Long-running the Winston Group, a political consulting firm, showed that in late 2021 and early 2022 Republicans really had eroded Democrats’ lead on education. The parties were even briefly tied for the first time since the early 2000s, when former President George W. Bush was championing No Child Left Behind. Polling commissioned in and by Democrats for Education Reform, a group that backs charter schools and vouchers, also showed Democrats falling behind on education.

Since then, though, Democrats appear to have regained their edge. In the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, the party held at least a 10-point lead, according to Winston Group. Other from last year found that more voters preferred Democrats’ approach on education, even as the party lost the presidency.

Emanuel pointed me to polling from 2022. “Democrats have not gained ground as much as Trump has cost GOP gains they have made,” he says when asked about the more recent surveys.

This year in Virginia, Democrat Abigail Spanberger easily won in her bid to replace Youngkin. Education was one of her stronger issues, according to a

Some argue that these disprove the idea that Democrats are losing on schools. “That’s not what panned out at all,” says Jennifer Berkshire, a progressive author who writes and teaches about education. She notes that the Republican governor candidate in New Jersey to make schools an issue and lost badly.

The Winston poll shows Democrats’ advantage is currently below its peak between 2006 and 2009 but is comparable to many other periods, including the tail end of the Obama administration and part of the first Trump administration.

Keep in mind: These surveys ask about education broadly, not just K-12 schools. When given the option, a good chunk of voters don’t endorse either party’s approach. For instance, a YouGov found Democrats up 39%-32% on education with another 29% saying they weren’t sure or that the parties were about the same.

The one public in which Democrats did not have an advantage came from Blue Rose Research, a Democratic-aligned firm. Ali Mortell, its head of research, says different survey methodologies can lead to different results.

Regardless, she wants to see Democratic politicians lean into the issue more. “Say they do have that trust advantage right now, [education] is still not something that they’re really talking about a lot,” Mortell says.

One of the top messages that resonates with voters focuses on addressing teachers’ concerns about stagnant pay and large class sizes, Blue Rose polling finds.

Democrats’ lead on education doesn’t appear to have grown much over the last year, according to surveys from Winston, YouGov, and Ipsos. That’s somewhat surprising since Trump’s approval has sunk generally and is low on education .

Jorge Elorza, the CEO of Democrats for Education Reform, points to it commissioned showing the two parties tied when it comes to making sure schools emphasize academic achievement. “Democrats should be focused on delivering results,” he says. “When we ask voters about that, it’s a toss up.” A separate DFER found the party with only a 1-point lead on who voters trust to ensure “students are prepared for success after high school.”

Democrats’ overall polling advantage on education does not necessarily speak to the substantive merits of their policies, however. One found that Democratic-leaning states have seen bigger declines in student test scores in recent years. At a national level, Democrats have a particularly clear message on K-12 education, unlike Trump.

“For the last six years there’s [been] no proactive agenda for Democrats on educational excellence,” says Emanuel.

The party’s approach to schools has clearly lost a segment of America’s political tastemakers including center-left nonprofit executives, political strategists, and even some Democratic politicians. Yet, despite insistent assertions otherwise, regular voters don’t seem to share this view, at least at the moment.

I relied on the following polls from this year, with Democrats’ lead in parentheses: Blue Rose Research (, tied); Fox News ( +15); Ipsos ( +6, +4, +7); Napolitan News Service ( +9, +6); Navigator ( +9); Strength in Numbers ( +11, +15); YouGov ( +7); Winston ( +15, +14, +11). To find these surveys, I conducted my own search and asked a variety of large pollsters, as well as a number of advocates. Differences in results between polls can come from random error, as well as differences in sampling and question wording. Although the precise wording varied, each poll asked voters which party they preferred on education.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

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 .

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. 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. 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.”

“The public seems tired of disruption, change and uncertainty,” . “All in all, the public appears to be calling for a return to the status quo.”

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The softening support this year spans the political spectrum, though — as in most years — respondents overwhelmingly looked more favorably on their own schools than on education at the national level. In its 15th year, the EdNext poll also found stronger support falling along lines of political affiliation among lawmakers.

Following up on a spring 2020 canvass of families, the journal also surveyed among the 3,156 adult respondents to learn their views on student safety, the likelihood they will have their children vaccinated when they are able and their satisfaction with their children’s experience in the 2020-21 academic year. Slightly more than half, 51 percent, plan to have their kids inoculated, while 34 percent say they will probably or definitely not.

Black and Latino parents are more likely to seek vaccinations for their children than white families, Democrats more likely than Republicans and homeschoolers least likely, at just 32 percent.

Two-thirds of parents surveyed want an online option for their high school-aged child, as do 48 percent of families with elementary pupils. Mask-wearing is favored by 47 percent, while 35 percent are opposed.

On the policy issues, the to probe whether the interviewer’s framing changed respondents’ answers. Writing in the journal’s winter 2022 issue, researchers Michael B. Henderson, David M. Houston, Paul E. Peterson and Martin R. West found a change of 5 points or more to be statistically significant.

While overall support for increased school spending fell significantly, it plunged by 11 percentage points, from 50 to 39 percent, among respondents who were told their local district’s current per-pupil expenditure. Among those asked without that context, the number favoring increased spending fell from 62 to 57 percent.

Support for increased teacher pay fell from 56 to 53 percent among those informed of their state’s current average, and from 72 to 67 percent among those not told average pay.

Overall backing for charter schools fell 7 points, from 48 to 41 percent. As in past polls, support is much stronger among Republicans than Democrats, at 52 percent and 33 percent respectively.

More than half, 55 percent, of respondents gave their local public schools a grade of A or B — down from a 2019 peak of almost 60 percent but well above the 40 percent who gave these high grades in 2008. In contrast, just 23 percent of those surveyed this year gave As or Bs to public schools across the country.

The number of Black respondents who rate schools in their community highly rose sharply, from 24 percent in 2008 to 46 percent in 2021. The number of whites assigning their schools As and Bs rose from 44 percent to 57 percent, while the number of Latinos rose from 39 percent to 60 percent.

All groups were much more likely to say the nation’s schools deserve neither an A or a B, with just 24 percent of Blacks and 18 percent of whites assigning top honors. At 59 percent, the number of Democrats giving local schools an A or a B remained the same between 2019 and 2021, while Republican support fell from 62 percent to 51 percent.

The number in favor of private school vouchers for all students fell sharply over 2019, from 55 percent to 45 percent, though less so for publicly funded scholarships for low-income students, which fell from 49 percent to 43 percent.

Support for tax credit vouchers, where businesses and others receive tax credits for donating to private school scholarship programs, gained traction with Democrats, with support increasing from 56 to 61 percent between 2019 and 2021. The idea lost ground among Republicans, meanwhile, with backing declining from 65 to 53 percent. The researchers speculated that the partisan reversal might in part reflect President Joe Biden’s success at persuading Congress to pass expanded tax credits for families with children.

In terms of whether teacher unions helped or hindered efforts to reopening schools during the first 18 months of the pandemic, the public “seems reluctant to draw strong conclusions,” the pollsters say. Half of Americans say unions made it neither easier nor harder to reopen schools.

Still, just 15 percent of survey takers say that unions made it easier for local schools to reopen, while 35 percent say they made it harder. Nationwide, 48 percent of respondents say unions made school reopenings harder.

Teachers were more likely than parents to opine critically, with 43 percent saying unions made it harder for local schools to open, versus 34 percent of parents. Of parents, 22 percent said unions made it easier for schools to reopen, an opinion held by 18 percent of teachers.

Seventy-two percent of Democrats and Republicans alike back statewide testing of students in grades 3 through 8 and again in high school.

The differences in the public’s and policymakers’ appetites for change should give education advocates across the ideological spectrum food for thought, the researchers say. “In the political sphere, expectations for large-scale innovation are running high,” they note.