Gen Z’s Love for School Increasing

Gen Z students have reported their most positive evaluations of schools in years, 71 percent awarding an A or B for this year in a Gallup and Walton Family Foundation report.

Newsweek has contacted the Department of Education for comment via email.

Why It Matters

The report, published on Wednesday, June 18, comes amid a litany of concerns about American education. A report released in January, 2025, from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that the reading and math skills of fourth and eighth-grade students have declined in multiple states to below the national average.

After this report was released, Peggy Carr, the commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, said: “These 2024 results clearly show that students are not where they need to be or where we want them to be.”

Educators were hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing disruption, the effects of which have been hard to recover from. In 2024, a report released by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE), a research group at Arizona State University stated that the average American student is “less than halfway to full academic recovery,” from the impact of the pandemic.

The Report’s Key Findings

Average school grades rose to a B on a 0-to-4 GPA scale, up from B- in 2023 and 2024. The percentage of students assigning their schools an A grade also jumped to 31 percent, up from 22 percent in 2023. Parents’ grades for schools also improved, with 40 percent rating their child’s school an A, marking a notable rise from 33 percent in the previous year.

Students’ average reported GPA for their schools reached 2.92, while parent-assigned averages also increased to 3.13, further reflecting the uptick in satisfaction. Gallup’s findings also showed Black and Hispanic students posting the greatest year-over-year gains.

The 2025 Gallup and Walton Family Foundation Student Report Card was based on a survey of 1,551 students and their parents, taken between May 16 and May 27.

“We saw improvements across the student body, including many of the groups that have historically given their school lower marks, such as students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, Black and Hispanic students, and students with disabilities,” Gallup’s senior education researcher Zach Hrynowski told Newsweek in an email.

The report cautioned that heightened positivity among students and parents had not yet translated into improved academic outcomes.

Kevin G. Welner, a research professor at the School of Education & School of Law at the University of Colorado Boulder told Newsweek the report is unquestionably “good news.” “If parents and students are happy with their schools, we should be happy as well.”

What Is Driving Gen Z’s Increased Satisfaction?

Hrynowski said: “While the improvements were broad, it’s hard to pin down a single cause.” The biggest improvements occurred in areas related to career-connected earning, and the next largest improvements came in students’ excitement about what they are learning, he said.

Welner said we can “only speculate” about why numbers are up, but pointed to post-COVID recovery as a potential reason.

Christopher Lubienski, a Professor of Education Policy at Indiana University pointed to a number of reasons there could be an increase in satisfaction, noting that people with potentially high levels of discontent, such as homeschooled students, weren’t sampled.

He also added that “schools represent stability in an increasingly unstable world for a lot of students.”

“Considering the sample size, it could be just a statistical blip,” Lubienski told Newsweek. “The bigger story here is the continued and maybe growing satisfaction across the board, but particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Frederick M. Hess, a senior fellow and the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute told Newsweek: “If you ask a student who doesn’t do any homework, do you such as school, there’s an excellent chance to tell you they such as school more than a kid who whose parents make them do homework.”

This is “not an ironclad rule by any means,” he said, adding that there is reason to be concerned that student satisfaction isn’t related to education or academic engagement.

It could be they like school because “they can hang out and do social media together,” Hess said. “I would never say positive results are a bad thing … I think it’s really important to be cautious.”

How Meaningful Are These Perception Shifts?

So, what do these perception shifts mean in practice?

Hrynowski noted “several indicators that would suggest this could be the first step toward improvements in long-term academic success.”

“From our three years of data, we clearly and consistently see that students who are more engaged in the classroom and give their schools higher marks also report better academic achievement and lower absenteeism,” Hrynowski said.

Matt Eicheldinger a New York Times bestselling author and Instagram and TikTok creator with a background in teaching, told Newsweek via email: “It can be easy to view these perception shifts as a valuable insight of the U.S. education system, but they should not be mistaken for definite indicators of the overall health of the system.

“Satisfaction may reflect school climate, stronger relationships, and more inclusive environment, but true educational health is multifaceted.”

Eicheldinger added that we need to consider academic outcomes, access equality and teacher retention, as well as funding and long-term student success.

“Without addressing these other systemic factors, increased satisfaction alone gives a misleading picture of progress,” he said.

Lubienski said the results show people still have faith in their schools, despite the challenges education has faced in recent years.

“There is a constant barrage of criticism of our schools from some politicians, but people still like their schools,” said Lubienski.

Hrynowski also flagged some potential issues with achievement scores and said that they are “probably a bit of a lagging indicator.”

“Even if the school experience has improved meaningfully over the last year, it may still take a year or two for those gains to start showing up in test scores.” Hrynowski added that stagnant test scores are down to things such as COVID learning loss.

“A better experience over the past year doesn’t guarantee that the damage of that learning loss has been fully mitigated—we may just be limiting the damage at this point,” Hrynowski said.

What Happens Next

The report comes at a time of major change for America’s education system. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education that former President Jimmy Carter founded 45 years ago, which could change the face of education in America. AI also poses significant challenges.

Lubienski said that though this is a relatively minor shift, it is a “hopeful sign,” before adding that we need to attend to having well resourced schools, good teachers and world-class curriculums.

Eicheldinger said this report could signal a turning point.

“When students enjoy school and feel connected, engagement and learning often rise,” he said. “But for lasting impact, that positive experience must be backed by meaningful changes, such as relevant curriculum and supportive environments.

“Joy is a great start, but it needs structure to lead to long-term success,” Eicheldinger added.