More from the 40th Gallup Poll of Public’s Attitudes Toward The Public Schools

• Lack of funding for schools tops the list of “biggest problems facing schools” for the sixth year in a row. After inadequate funding, their second largest concern is discipline.
• Parents don’t consider lack of discipline in schools as a problem at all and are more concerned with overcrowding.
• Americans support an increased use of federal funds to maintain local public schools.
• Fewer than 2 of 10 Americans believe the No Child Left Behind legislation should be continued without significant change.
• Americans are more supportive of school vouchers than they have been in recent years but are less favorable toward charter schools, ending a five-year trend of increased support for these alternative public schools. Republicans favor vouchers much more than do Democrats. However, Democrats and Republicans favor charter schools at about the same levels.
• Americans continue to view their community schools positively with 46% assigning grades of A and B. This is in contrast to how Americans view the nation’s schools, with only 22% of respondents giving the nation’s schools A’s and B’s.
• Parents’ perception of the school attended by their oldest child is very positive with 72% assigning grades of A and B, the highest recorded in 15 years.
• Americans believe the next president should turn to education leaders — not political or business leaders — in developing policies for public schools.

Chester E. Finn, Jr., Senior Fellow,Hoover Institution, Stanford University, President, ThomasB. Fordham Institute sees the results this way:

Ignoring the election-year stuff that journalists will surely focus on, I’m most struck by five revelations in these data:Though parents still give high marks to their own kids’schools, Americans plainly sense that not all is well with the nation’s K-12 system.

Hence, the middling-to-low grades for “public schools in the nation as a whole” and the widespread awareness that schools in other lands are doing better. The public is
receptive to, often eager for, a host of reforms that educators view with alarm and politicians with apprehension.

These include national academic standards, national teacher testing, differentiated pay, and both charterschools and vouchers.

People still know little about NCLB and are wary of its renewal, yet when it’s deconstructed into key elements such as standards and testing, most people like them fine and even want more of them!

The case has yet to be made with much of the public that schools should impart a broad, liberal arts curriculumto youngsters. I’m depressed to find a (slim) majority continuingto view it as a “good thing” if today’s press for stronger reading and math skills leads to de-emphasis on other subjects.

Americans say they trust state and local officials (and educators) more than Uncle Sam to make education decisions— but that doesn’t keep them from wanting
Washington to shoulder a larger share of school budgets! Maybe folks don’t believe the maxim that he who pays the piper calls the tune.

But Linda Darling-Hammond, rumored to be in line for a White House Ed policy job (should Obama be elected president) says,

The American public has some clear messages about education for our next president. Although parents feel more positive than ever about the schools their
own children attend — with 72% giving these schools an A or B grade — they
worry about other schools and believe there is a need for continuing improvement.

Most would like to see more common expectations for what students learn, more
opportunities for students to take college courses while they are in high school, and more financial aid for students to attend college — a critical issue as reduced access to college aid has collided with demands for a more educated workforce, and the U.S. has slipped from 1st in the world in college participation to 15th. The public also wants to see more common standards for teachers, as well as incentives such as career ladders to reward excellence in teaching.

While the public wants to see standards increase, most do not think the current No Child Left Behind Act is accomplishing the job. Only 16% of respondents would re-authorize NCLB without change. Two-thirds would either change it significantly or abandon it entirely.

While several answers suggest the public does not want to abandon testing, overwhelming majorities would like to see school progress measured by student
improvement rather than by a single score, as NCLB now requires, and 4 out of 5
think that examples of student work, teacher grades, or teacher observations are
the most accurate measures of students’ academic progress, rather than test
scores.

The next president’s challenge may be to build a broader vision of learning and performance while raising educational standards and greatly expanding opportunities to learn."