The American public believes the quality of the classroom teacher is the most important factor in ensuring a good education for all children, more crucial than class size or presentation style, according to the 43rd annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes toward the Public Schools 
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The public understands the importance of finding and retaining the best teachers and also trusts and supports the teachers (71 percent) at work in schools now. The trust level is even higher for Americans under 40 years of age, those with college educations, and those with children in public schools.
In the past, Americans might not have advised talented students to choose a teaching career over other professions, but that attitude seems to be shifting. Three of four Americans would support recruiting high-achieving high school students to become teachers and the same number would encourage the brightest person they know to enter the profession. Two-thirds of respondents would like their child to become a public school teacher, a finding consistent with past poll results.
At all levels (elementary, middle, and high school), the public strongly believes that having an effective teacher is more critical than the number of students in a class. Eighty percent of respondents would favor having larger classes with more effective teachers at the high school level (and 72 percent at the elementary level). Americans would also favor a more effective teacher who provided instruction over the Internet to a less effective teacher who was physically in the classroom with students.
Americans believe teacher salaries should be based on multiple factors: level of academic degree, experience, and evaluations by their principal. Student performance on standardized tests was also important to three out of four respondents, but still ranked lower than the other factors listed.
When asked which factors should be most important when determining which teachers to lay off, the public said principal evaluations were the most important factor. Scores the teacher’s students receive on standardized tests came in second, followed by experience and academic degree.
A large segment of the public believes that the unionization of teachers has hurt public education (47 percent). Only 26 percent believe that it has helped, while 25 percent believe it has made no difference, and 2 percent didn’t know or didn’t answer.
Despite public ambivalence toward teacher unions, the majority (52 percent) of respondents said they would side with them in disputes between governors and state employee labor unions over collective bargaining policies and the state’s budget.
