This article has been updated to reflect 2026 data and recent developments.
The American public school system is far from perfect, but the list of top issues is constantly changing. Some say that the emphasis on standardized testing is destroying the quality of public education, while others believe that schools are too crowded and parents are too uninvolved. The fact of the matter is that each public school system has its own problems depending on where it is located, the local demographics, the amount of funding it receives, and myriad other factors. Keep reading to learn about some of the biggest problems currently facing public high schools in particular.
The Top 3 Issues Affecting Public High Schools
If you were to ask parents from one hundred different school districts about the problems they see with the public school system, you would probably get 100 different responses. Although there are many different problems with the American public school system, recent data collected from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) through its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) shows that the academic performance of American students remains a concern, particularly in mathematics. The 2022 assessment found that U.S. students performed close to the OECD average in mathematics and above the average in reading and science. School systems are evaluated on a wide variety of factors, but there are some issues that tend to fly under the radar which still have a significant impact. Here are the top three.
1. Students don’t spend enough time in school.
The requirement for the number of school days varies slightly from one state to another. Many U.S. states have a 180-day calendar, while others have different requirements or measure instructional time in hours rather than days. This requires students to be in school for approximately 49% of the year in states following a 180-day calendar. If you take a closer look at the numbers, you’ll find that the states that have the lowest requirements for scheduled school days spend more days out of school than in school. This information doesn’t mean much until you compare it to international standards.
Many countries outside the United States have different requirements for school days. Canadian requirements are usually around 188 days and students in England have 190 scheduled school days. But if you travel a little further from the U.S., you’ll come to China and Japan, where school calendars and instructional requirements vary. Korea also has a demanding academic schedule, although the number of required school days has changed over time. If you take the average, international school systems differ considerably in the number of scheduled school days, making direct comparisons difficult.
It isn’t enough to just look at the number of days students spend in school, you also have to take a look at how long each school day is. The average American student spends about 7 to 8 hours a day in school while Korean high school students may spend additional hours studying after school. This is a huge contrast to students in England who may spend as little as 6.5 to 7 hours in school each day. Interestingly, countries such as Korea and Japan continue to perform strongly in international assessments for subjects like math and science, although instructional time alone does not explain these results.
All things considered, there are just as many people in the U.S. who believe that their children spend too much time in school as there are who think their kids don’t spend enough time in school. Disparities between the number of days a child attends school and the length of those school days may account to some degree for differences in academic performance from one state to another. Many of the people who argue for longer school days mention international competitiveness as a motivating factor, but there are other benefits to consider. Some children simply need more time to learn and many need individualized attention, a shorter school day doesn’t allow enough time for curriculum and individual time spent with students.
Public School Review's Longer School Days Coming for Thousands of Students Next Year provides an earlier example of efforts to increase instructional time, an issue that remains relevant to discussions about academic achievement in 2026.
2. The public has no respect for the teaching profession.
In the United States, teachers are often underpaid compared with other professionals who have similar educational qualifications and yet they are expected to do twice the work they actually get paid for. For a teacher, the day doesn’t end with the last bell, most teachers stay after school for several hours, or they take their work home, grading papers and developing lesson plans late into the night. Furthermore, many teachers struggle with inadequate funding for educational programs and they end up spending a lot of money out of their own pockets to benefit their students. But why are teachers so undervalued and why is American interest in education continuing to decline? In Finland, it is considered a great honor to be a teacher and, in Singapore, it is a highly selective field of work.
According to the National Education Association, the national average public school teacher salary reached approximately $74,495 in its 2026 report. However, teacher salaries have not kept pace with inflation over the past decade, reinforcing concerns about compensation and the long-term attractiveness of the profession.
Research conducted by the Pew Research Center has examined Americans' interest in education and other major public issues. In regard to which topics had the most interest, earlier surveys frequently identified the U.S. economy, terrorism, and job creation among important concerns. These topics are certainly worthy of address, but it is often overlooked that some of these are actually relevant to the quality of the American education system. For example, a report published by the McGraw-Hill Research Foundation indicated that if the United States could increase its PISA scores by just 25 points over the course of the next two decades, it could lead to a serious financial gain for the U.S. economy, as much as $41 trillion over the lifetime of the generation being born at the time of that projection.
Teacher recruitment and retention remain concerns in 2026, particularly in districts experiencing staffing shortages. Public School Review's Teacher Shortage Solutions That Are Working in 2026 examines approaches intended to address these challenges.
3. There is not enough emphasis on arts education.
Many schools simply don’t receive enough funding, so they must make difficult decisions about which programs to fund and which programs to cut. Unfortunately, it is often arts programs that get the ax. In fact, while she was the First Lady, Michelle Obama reported that as many as 6 million school-age children had no access to arts education and another 6 million only had minimal access. In some schools, there are no dedicated art teachers, which means limited access to art programs. In cities around the country, public schools face financial pressures, which means that teachers may lose their jobs and many programs may lose their funding.
The National Endowment for the Arts has also examined access to arts education in American public schools, including findings from a November 2024 national survey. These findings provide more recent context for understanding differences in arts education opportunities.
This video discusses the arts and education in American public schools.
In many school systems, the arts are considered less important than math and science. Studies have shown, however, that the arts provide significant benefits for students. Art programs should not be considered a luxury, they are important for helping children to solve problems and to create. Art also helps children to develop motor skills, to improve their problem-solving and critical thinking skills, to develop visual-spatial skills, and to develop language. Arts programs also help students to develop cultural awareness, which is very important as American society becomes increasingly more diverse. There is also a strong correlation between arts education and improved academic performance in other aspects of education such as math and science.
Public School Review's The Role of Arts in Public Schools (2026 Update) explores the continuing importance of arts education and the challenges schools face in maintaining these programs.
The sad truth is that there are many problems in the American education system. Some of these problems are overwhelmingly large and often interlinked with other issues. Unfortunately, there may not even be much that you can do personally to improve these problems. What you can do is educate yourself and become an advocate for the American public education system.
