For the past few days, I’ve been reading the Phi Delta Kappa-Gallup poll released last week. It asked 1,002 Americans what they thought about American education. The poll, completed between May 7 and June 10, 2012, was the 44th annual poll by Phi Delta Kappa.
The authors gave the poll the subtitle “A Nation Divided,” which should not surprise anyone, since Americans are divided on almost every issue, including education. The preliminary report is available here as a PDF file, and the final report will be ready some time next month.
The poll covered several areas, and I’ll deal briefly with the ones I think were properly polled. If you’d like to know about more of them, please read the report.
Highest rating in 20 years for local schools
About 48% of those polled gave the schools in their hometown community an A or B, which is the highest percentage in 20 years. When asked to evaluate the school their oldest child attended, 77% gave it an A or B, also the highest percentage in 20 years. Only 6% gave the school their oldest child attends a D or F.
Although the poll does not list this question first in the analysis, I’m listing it first here, simply because it’s real. It seems, when we ask people to evaluate “the education system in America,” people give it low marks—only 18% in the poll gave it an A or B—but if the questions draw people’s attention to a specific school, the marks go way up, regardless of where they are in the country.
Isn’t that interesting? The “American education system” is made up entirely of these local neighborhood schools, and people give those schools an A or B but evaluate the overall system made up by those very schools more critically. People apparently think the grass is browner on the other side of the fence.
71% say they have trust and confidence in teachers
This is more good news, but if you were to read a newspaper or watch an Oprah special with superstar ex-superintendent Michelle Rhee on it, along with her PR machine, you would never predict this result.
The media like a good fight, because it makes for interesting television, but in the real world, people’s opinions of teachers seem to be positive. Teachers are way too easy to pick on.
We’re split on using standardized tests to evaluate teachers
When asked if teacher evaluations should be based, at least in part, on standardized test scores of the students in those teachers’ classrooms, 52% of Americans said yes, and 47% said no.
Here, I’m surprised the split is so even. I have written extensively about this subject, as have other education policy experts, but given the torrential downpour of messages from the Obama administration, Michelle Rhee, corporate executives and philanthropists who think they know best how to evaluate teacher effectiveness, and their ilk, combined with the dozens of states that have jumped on this bandwagon, I had thought the propaganda would have gotten through to more people.
Apparently not. Whew!
Vouchers are gaining traction
This just barely made my report, but support for “allowing students to choose a private school at public expense” increased from 34% to 44%, a substantial jump.
It’s only because the increase was so large in only one year that I included it. The fact is, the question did not ask specifically about religious schools, which is what the subject of “vouchers” is really about. The numbers might have been different, but the questions would not have been comparable to those from last year if they were changed. But voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, the District of Columbia, Louisiana, Ohio, and Indiana deal with religious schools, not simply “private schools.”
Narrowing the black-white achievement gap is possible
Of those polled, 84% said they believed the achievement gap between white students and black or Hispanic students could be “narrowed substantially while maintaining high standards for all children.” This is up slightly from 81% in 2006, when the question was last asked, but it is still a high number.
Children of illegal immigrants should not be educated
Most Americans oppose providing free public education and other benefits to children of immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, the results showed. However, the authors pointed out that the responses on this question depended significantly on the political party of the respondent, with Democrats tending to support this question.
People’s responses also depended on where they lived, the report states. In the West, for example, 52% were opposed to providing a free education to children of illegal immigrants, whereas 70% of the people were opposed in the Midwest.
Yeah, just what we want: more Hispanic children on the streets during school hours who can’t speak English. The initial report didn’t say what we’re supposed to do with these children whose parents broke our laws. Nor do I have any suggestions.
Common Core question was a waste of time
The poll asked some questions about the Common Core State Standards. Most people have a positive, hopeful opinion of the standards, but I doubt any of the respondents have actually read them. Furthermore, the standards are just starting to be implemented across the country, and any opinions expressed by those polled are mere hypotheses at this point.
I’m sure the plan is to ask this question again in three to five years if the Common Core is still around.
