WASHINGTON (TND) — A new Gallup poll shows Americans are losing faith in the institution entrusted to shape and educate the next generation.

Just 28% of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in public schools, that’s only two percentage points above the record low 26% from 2014.

The numbers show a clear partisan divide: Only 14% of Republicans have faith in public schools compared with 43% of Democrats. The 29-point disparity is the largest gap in sentiment ever recorded by Gallup on the topic.

Education is increasingly becoming a battlefield first for political fights over COVID-19 restrictions, teachings of race, gender identity and sexuality.

Conservatives are finding success on the issue.

For example, Virginia's Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, made education a central point of his winning platform last November.

Local school board races, once relatively obscure events, are now gaining prominence in the political arena.

Elections from Florida to Maine regularly make headlines.

“We’re so excited that school board races are getting national attention,” said Tiffany Justice with the group Moms for Liberty. “Because honestly, local elected officials are the ones who are making decisions that are really impacting families.”

Soldiers in some battles place politics on the back burner to fight for the common goal of achieving quality education in some of America’s worst-performing schools, like Baltimore.

“We have to start putting our children first. We have to start saying in this system, we can do better. It's not about politics. It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about our children,” civil rights attorney Ben Crump said during a press conference in Baltimore earlier this month.

Crump recently joined a lawsuit filed against the city’s underperforming school system.

The children at the center of these battles will one day shape the course of this country so advocates argue it’s hard to overstate the importance of these fights.