Spring Teacher Survey: Hopeful About Their Students, Worried About the System 

In early April, we launched the first of two teacher surveys we have planned for 2026. We’ve put together a wide array of questions to learn more about teachers’ experiences and perspectives, including topics like AI, durable skills, and general feelings about the teaching profession.  

In partnership with Morning Consult, EdChoice surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,030 teachers from April 1 through April 9, 2026. The full polling report can be found here. 

Let’s dig in.  

Teachers are not feeling very optimistic about education. 

About half of teachers (47%) believe K-12 education is going well in their local school district, but only 26% think education is going well across the country. They are less optimistic than parents about every level of education: local (47% vs 55%), statewide (36% vs 47%), and national (26% vs 41%). These sentiments about education remain fairly unchanged since the beginning of the school year.  

Teachers also don’t recommend the teaching profession. Only 22% of teachers are very likely to recommend teaching to a friend or family member. That’s down from 27% compared to this time last year.  

Perhaps that’s connected to the one-third of teachers (28%) who report feeling overwhelmed when thinking about the future.  

However, not everything is doom and gloom. Seventy percent of teachers feel a sense of purpose and 67% feel hopeful. Despite the challenges of K-12 education, teachers generally express a remarkably positive outlook toward the future.  

Teachers also feel generally satisfied with their students’ learning. The vast majority of teachers (82%) say they’re satisfied with their students’ learning, compared to 17% who express dissatisfaction.  

We might take away that while teachers feel concern about the broader landscape of education and the teaching career, they remain largely hopeful at a personal level — both in their outlook on life, and about their students.  

Teachers see the value of technology like laptops in the classroom, but they are concerned about the impact of artificial intelligence. 

Most teachers (70%) feel satisfied with their students’ use of technology in school. The majority of teachers (69%) say that laptops have had a positive impact on their students’ learning experience. In general, teachers feel positively about laptops as a helpful learning tool.  

But teachers have mixed feelings about different types of technology being used at school. They support using tech like online learning platforms (89%), laptops (84%), and online learning games (83%) at school. However, the majority of teachers oppose the use of cell phones (74%) and artificial intelligence (55%) in the classroom.  

Diving deeper into teacher views on artificial intelligence, it’s clear that teachers feel concerned. The majority of teachers (51%) are very or extremely concerned about the effects of AI on society in the future, expressing stronger concern than American adults (41%) or school parents (35%). 

This high level of concern might be related to teachers’ ongoing struggle with how to address student use of AI. Teachers generally oppose (65%) letting students use AI assistance for schoolwork, and 42% are extremely or very concerned about how AI is affecting their students’ learning this year. Only 21% say that they’re not concerned.  

With such concern that AI might be detrimental to student learning, it becomes more important than ever to help students build their own critical thinking skills. Teachers overwhelmingly agree that it’s important to help students learn strong reasoning skills so they can determine what is appropriate use of technology and evaluate the information provided to them by AI.  

Teachers are worried about how their students’ learning will be affected by artificial intelligence, and we should take note. What K-12 students learn today will shape the next generation and our society.  

Teachers are aligned with parents on the importance of durable skills, with a few caveats. 

Nearly 90% of teachers feel durable skills (such as communication, critical thinking, teamwork, adaptability, and responsibility) are extremely or very important for a school to prioritize. This lines up with what we’ve observed from parents, with 77% saying it’s very important. Both teachers (41%) and parents (42%) believe teaching kids durable skills should be a shared responsibility between parents, schools, community organizations, and employers. Interestingly, teachers (38%) are 9 points more likely than parents (29%) to say parents and families are most responsible for teaching students durable skills. On the other hand, 17% of parents say schools are most responsible, compared to 12% of teachers who say the same.    

We asked teachers about different types of evidence that can demonstrate a student’s durable skills. Back in March, we asked parents the same question, and the differences are notable.  

Teachers overwhelmingly pointed to more qualitative evidence. Their top three: student reflections and self-assessments (53%), completed projects and portfolios (46%), and work experience or internships (38%). Parents had a different top three and a more even distribution: completed projects (38%), work experience (38%), and grades over time (37%). 

A few gaps are worth touching on here. Teachers saw more value than parents on student reflections and self-assessments by 20 points (53% to 33%). Parents were more likely than teachers to prioritize standardized tests by 13 points (24% to 11%), as well as grades over time by 9 points (37% to 28%). 

Teachers are supportive of school choice policies, especially ESAs. Their support increases when a description is provided.  

With a description of ESAs included, 75% of teachers support ESAs, a slight increase from last spring. Without a description, support is still strong at 60%. Teachers with less than 10 years of experience express higher levels of support for ESAs (81%), though more experienced teachers are still more likely than not to support ESAs (10-14 years of experience – 75%, 15+ years of experience – 71%).  

Teachers are also much more likely (by 22 points) to believe that ESAs should be available to all families (67%) than to believe that ESAs should be made available to families based on financial need (45%). This belief is consistent with what we see from parents and the general population.  

Teachers are supportive of school vouchers as well, albeit at a lower level than ESAs or charter schools. Just over half (52%) of teachers support school vouchers, remaining steady from a year ago. Private school teachers (72%) and teachers with less than 10 years of experience (62%) are most supportive of school vouchers.  

Read the full polling report.