A landmark editorial series began today in the Chicago Tribune, two editorials and one op-ed piece from the Joyce Foundation, telling the paper’s readers that the majority of Chicagoans in a telephone survey support the corporate reform agenda, including school closings, parent-trigger laws, merit-based teacher pay, and tuition vouchers.
For the record, since the Tribune failed to point this out, the Joyce Foundation supported, with its own money, the evaluations used in the merit-pay system that failed in Chicago over a five-year period. I’ll write more about that as soon as I finish some research so the argument doesn’t become ad hominem.
The telephone calls were part of what is known as a “push poll,” where an organization, here the Joyce Foundation, attempts to influence the opinions of the respondents in such a way as to make them appear to support the political position of the polling organization. Recall from your data analysis class—probably in your freshman year of high school or maybe eighth grade—that push polling is a form of bias.
To illustrate this bias, John Kugler, a reporter for Substance News, recorded and transcribed the actual interview he answered for this survey. You can read how the interviewer attempted to influence the opinions of the respondent. Here, about the quality of teachers, the interviewer said:
And research shows that the quality of a teacher is the most important factor in the school. How satisfied are you with your oldest child’s current teachers, would you say very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, somewhat dissatisfied, or very dissatisfied?
Citing research to show that the quality of “a” teacher is the most important factor in “the school” is complete hogwash. I don’t even think that sentence says what the interviewer thinks it says. Since it doesn’t really say anything, I can’t call the interviewer a liar, but I think it shows the underhanded, subtle attempt to influence the opinions of the respondent. At the very least, it plants an idea in his head that he might take away from the phone call.
That’s why such polls are common in political campaigns. You see, it doesn’t really matter what the Tribune says a survey showed; it only matters what the people of Chicago think as we move forward. School reform is a long process, and the Joyce Foundation, corporate money, etc., are just trying to influence public opinion here by showing people are “impatient” and want reforms “now.” They are also taking advantage of the “survey” opportunity to spread their doctrines about what the most important factors are in our schools.
For now, though, I can only deal with one subject in the poll, so let’s start with parent-trigger laws. Generally, parent-trigger laws make it easier to close schools, since a vote of a school board will not be necessary. Today’s editorial says:
A “parent trigger” law. Six in 10 (61.1 percent) favor a law that would empower parents to take control of a persistently failing school.
Sounds like at least 38.9 percent of Chicagoans are well informed! As we reported, a parent-trigger bill has been introduced in the General Assembly. We didn’t notice it when it was introduced, because it was slipped in without fanfare. But we caught it when it got assigned to the House’s Elementary and Secondary Education Committee. It’s now before the Rules Committee.
If you have strong feelings about this bill, please write your state representative. We are opposed to this bill, as written. (UPDATE 3/28: >>> We reported that this bill will not make it to the House floor, according to the bill’s sponsor.)
Parent-trigger laws sound good to parents and residents of a city, but the unintended consequence of this legislation is to strip power away from elected officials, namely school boards. We are fundamentally opposed to stripping power away from elected officials and would prefer that people speak with their votes, rather than with a petition that many of them might oppose despite their inability to mount a campaign in opposition to a petition going around their communities.
In a political campaign, what candidates promise is on the record and in some cases in a TV commercial. What door-to-door canvassers promise parents in exchange for their signatures on the petition, on the other hand, can’t really be checked independently. When it comes to deciding who runs public schools, we would prefer the political process to a “Parent Revolution” organization funded by billionaires.
Historically, a parent-trigger petition has resulted in the takeover of only one school in the US. Parents reported being coerced by heavily-funded organizations that sought to take over the school. Some parents tried to rescind their signatures but were banned from doing so by a California court.
Unfortunately, the editorial didn’t say how this question was presented to Chicagoans. Let’s say the person conducting the phone interviews asked, “Do you support parent-trigger laws?” I suspect most people would ask what those are. Then, let’s say the interviewer used the words, as reported in the editorial, “empower parents” and “persistently failing” schools. If the Tribune used words in reporting the results that were not part of the survey, that would also cast a shadow of darkness on the editorial, so for the moment, let’s take the Tribune at its word.
And given those words, the survey appears to have asked parents if they would like to be empowered without advising them of the great damage to the democratic process such a law causes. At the same time, the interviewer apparently emphasized the great damage persistently bad schools cause. What exactly should we expect parents to say? If the question was, in fact, presented as the Tribune’s editorial board wrote that it was in today’s editorial, I’m frankly surprised the number wasn’t 100 percent.
The reporter who recorded the interview did not mention any question about parent petitions or parent-trigger laws in the survey interview. Surveys sometimes don’t ask every respondent all the questions, but this casts further statistical doubts on the quality and randomness of the survey. Given the reporter’s contention that his recording was complete and the Tribune’s claim about how many people support parent-trigger laws, it’s possible that interviewers selected people who would be asked about parent-trigger laws. Naughty, naughty!
For the record, Chicago’s school board is not elected by the people; it’s appointed. But the law now in the House Rules Committee would affect all districts in Illinois, including those with elected school boards.
The way to fix a problem in a democracy is with more democracy, not less. If the press is unable, for whatever reasons, to support democracy, we’re all doomed, not just our schools.
