Senate Passes Education Bill: Where Does the Public Stand?

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- The Senate Thursday passed a new education bill a month after the House had passed its own education measure, paving the way for a new education law that promises to be one of the most sweeping in decades. The Senate bill greatly increases the role of the federal government in the nation's education system. It features a heavy emphasis on mandatory standardized testing as the basis for identifying and taking action against weak schools. The new bill received bipartisan support, and the Bush administration is touting it as the fulfillment of one of the president's most important campaign promises.

Where does the American public stand on all of this? Here are answers to some major questions about the public's opinion on education, based on Gallup polling on the issue over the past year:

Is education a high priority for Americans, or not?

According to the public, education ranks as one of the most important issues for the president and Congress to address. Indeed, Gallup polls conducted this past election year showed that education was consistently highest on the lists of issues the voters wanted candidates to discuss. Education is also near the top of lists of the most important problems facing the country today.

In a Gallup poll conducted June 8-10, 2001, 61% of Americans said it is "extremely important" that Congress and the president address education in the next year -- the highest percentage of any issue tested. Gallup polling in May 2001 asked the public to rate the priority it attached to a list of six items for the Bush administration, and nine out of 10 said education should be a top or high priority, ranking it above military security and "keeping America prosperous."

In December 2000, an open-ended question asked Americans to name their first impressions regarding the top priorities for newly elected President Bush. Although the responses were widely diversified, 8% mentioned education, putting it second only behind "uniting the country," which was highly top-of-mind at the time of the survey.

ISSUE SALIENCE SUMMARY TABLE

2001 Jun 8-10 (sorted by "extremely important")	Extremely important	Extremely/very important
	%	%
Education	61	93
Prescription drugs for older Americans	49	85
Increased energy conservation	42	79
A patients' bill of rights	40	77
Increased oil and gas production	35	70
Price caps on electricity	34	65
Raising the minimum wage	31	63
Missile defense	25	54
Campaign finance	18	40

In your opinion, what should be the top priority for the Bush administration in its first 100 days? [Open-ended]

	2000 Dec 15-17
Uniting the country	13%
Education	8
Healthcare	7
Taxes/tax reduction	6
The economy	6
Social Security	5
Working with Democrats/bipartisanship	4
Election process reform	4
Getting the government running	4
Establishing himself as president	3
Foreign policy	3
Medicare	3
The poor/homelessness	3
Defense/the military	2
Choosing a cabinet	2
Minority issues/showing he is for all people	2
Restoring confidence in the government	1
Campaign finance reform	1
Fulfilling campaign promises	1
The budget/deficit	1
Crime	1
Abortion	1
Senior citizen issues	1
Environment	*
Other	4
Nothing	2
No opinion	12

The new bill passed by the Senate includes a requirement that schools must conduct annual testing and penalizes schools if they do not improve. How do Americans feel about this?

For several decades -- in Gallup polls and in Gallup surveys conducted for the international educational association Phi Delta Kappa -- the public has, by percentages of 70% and more, backed the use of standardized national achievement testing for measuring both student academic progress and for grade promotion, including high school graduation.

Here are the results of a question asked in a Gallup poll earlier this year:

Should public school students be required to pass a standardized test in order to be promoted to the next grade, or not?

	Yes, should be	No, should not	No opinion
2001 Jan 5-7	77%	20	3

Still, even though Americans appear to approve of the concept of mandatory testing, are they convinced that mandatory testing is the single best answer to improving public education?

No. Despite their general endorsement of the concept of mandatory standard testing in school districts nationwide, Americans don't necessarily think it is the only -- or even the best -- way to improve the quality of education in the United States. In a January 2001 Gallup poll, for example, Americans felt that paying teachers more would be the most important way to improve public education. Providing more money for local school systems to use as they see fit essentially tied with the idea of standardized tests "to hold schools accountable" -- in second place.

When Gallup asked Americans in an open-ended question last April to name, top of mind, the federal government's action they thought "would be most effective in helping to improve public schools in the United States today," very few mentioned mandatory testing. The most prevalent answer was providing more money, followed by teacher standards (rather than testing students) and higher teacher pay.

And, at the same time, Americans appear to have other reservations about achievement testing, particularly about the amount of testing in their local schools.

For example, the public is divided over whether, on an overall basis, there is too much or too little achievement testing in the local schools. Forty-three percent say there is about the right amount and the remainder is roughly split between those who think there is too much and those who feel there is too little testing.

Americans, by 68% to 26%, also believe that examples of public school students' work offer a better way to measure their academic achievement than do their scores on standardized local and state achievement tests.

Now, here are some questions about testing. In your opinion, is there too much emphasis on achievement testing in the public schools in your community, not enough emphasis on testing, or about the right amount?

Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa Education Surveys
	National totals		No children in school		Public school parents
	2000	1997	2000	1997	2000	1997
	%	%	%	%	%	%
Too much emphasis	30	20	28	20	34	19
Not enough emphasis	23	28	26	28	19	26
About the right amount	43	48	41	46	46	54
Don't know	4	4	5	6	1	1

The new Senate bill would significantly increase the role of the federal government in what has traditionally been a locally controlled issue -- public education. Do Americans really want the federal government to be more involved in local schools, or not?

As is often the case in public opinion polling, the way in which Americans are asked about the role of the federal government can make a significant difference in the types of responses obtained.

One question Gallup asked this past fall suggests that Americans tilt toward favoring more federal government involvement in education, rather than less. This question stressed "public education in this country" (as opposed to local schools), did not mention "Washington," used the word "involved" (as opposed to "control" or "influence") and gave respondents the opportunity to say "keep involvement the same." With all of these aspects of the question, the responses obtained were as follows:

In terms of public education in this country, do you think the federal government: should be more involved in education than it currently is, should keep its involvement about the same, or should be less involved in education than it currently is?[RANDOM ORDER]

	National Adults	K-12 Parents
April 7-9, 2000
More involved	46%	50%
Keep involvement same	22	22
Less involved	29	26
No opinion	3	2
Total	100%	100%

Other questions have found a type of response different from the one outlined above. For example, a question worded as follows:"Now, let's focus on the decisions made that affect the public schools in your community. As I name a specific group or individual, please tell me whether you think that group or individual has too much, too little, or just about the right amount of say in the decisions that affect the local public schools,"gets a much more negative response. By a margin of about two to one in response to this wording, Americans say they would like the federal government to have less influence (61%), rather than more (33%), in local decisions. In a similar vein, in the same survey, 49% say the federal government has too much influence on the decisions that affect the local public schools, compared to 16% who feel the government has too little influence, and 29% who say about the right amount.

If federal money is given to states for education, does the public like the idea of the states being able to spend it any way they want -- as opposed to it being given "with strings attached"?

In determining how federal money should be distributed to the states, seven in 10 Americans (71%) think the states should be given flexibility or leeway in how the money should be spent, while 23% think the money should be specifically designated for particular programs.

And, in a poll conducted earlier this year, Americans were more enthusiastic about the potentially positive impact of the federal government providing money for local schools that the districts could use as they see fit, than they were about the federal government providing money for local schools "for programs specified by the federal government."

Both the House and the Senate said "no" to the Bush administration's call for vouchers. What does the public say about vouchers?

Americans' opinions about the controversial issue of school vouchers have not yet formed into well-defined patterns of either support or opposition. A review of survey research conducted over the past year on the issue reveals a wide range of responses to questions about school choice and school voucher programs -- responses that largely depend on the way in which the programs are described to respondents in the questions. The data suggest that support intensifies when survey questions say the programs provide a choice for parents, that only part of the cost might be provided, or that attending religious schools is an option. Support is lowest when the programs are more simply described as providing government funding for students to attend private schools.

The vouchers issue is a complex area of public policy. The idea of providing parents and students with a choice of the way in which they can use public tax monies targeted for education is a concept that can be operationalized into specific programs in a variety of ways. No single voucher program has been advanced nationally, and it is likely that many Americans are only vaguely familiar with the concept.

Here, by way of example, are the responses to two slightly different questions asked about vouchers in a January 2001 Gallup poll:

VERSION A: Please tell me whether you would vote for or against the following proposition. Would you vote for or against a system giving parents the option of using government-funded school vouchers to pay for tuition at the public, private or religious school of their choice?

For	62%
Against	36
Don't know	2

VERSION B: Please tell me whether you would vote for or against the following proposition. Would you vote for or against a system giving parents government-funded school vouchers to pay for tuition at a private school?

For	48%
Against	47
Don't know	5

The differences in responses to the two ways of presenting the voucher idea are significant. Version A wins the support of the public by a 26% margin, while version B essentially breaks even.

While the basic form of the questions is exactly the same, three differences were built into the wording used in the two versions:

• Version A includes the phrase "giving parentsthe option of usinggovernment-funded school vouchers," while Version B says more simply, "giving parents government-funded school vouchers."

• Version A includes the phrase "public,private orreligiousschool," while version B says more simply "private school."

• Version A includes the phrase "of their choice," while Version B does not.

Without further experimentation, it is not possible to determine precisely which of these three variations induced the biggest differences in support for vouchers. The above experiment, however, does support the hypothesis that reminding respondents that voucher programs would include options and choices, and adding the fact that the choices of schools could include other public schools and religious schools, makes a difference in the public's acceptance of such programs.

All in all, how do Americans rate the nation's public schools today, as well as the public schools in their area?

It depends on how you ask the question.

Gallup surveys conducted for Phi Delta Kappa have shown for years that the grades Americans give to schools in their local communities are much higher than the grades they give to schools nationally. Forty-seven percent of American adults give the schools in their communities a grade of A or B, while only 20% give an A or B grade to schools across the country. (This type of local-versus-national disparity is often noted in survey research, and also pertains to such issues as healthcare and crime.)

Along these same lines, Gallup polling from 2000 showed that 61% of the public are either "somewhat dissatisfied" or "completely dissatisfied" with the quality of education in this country, while 36% are "completely satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied." Dissatisfaction appears to be growing, as opinion was more evenly divided on the quality of education in this country in 1999, when 47% were satisfied and 51% were dissatisfied.

Opinions differ dramatically, however, on the quality of education one's own children receive. In the same poll, 78% of parents of school-aged children say they are either completely satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the quality of education their (oldest) child is receiving, while only 18% express any sort of dissatisfaction. In contrast to the education numbers for the country as a whole, parents' satisfaction with their children's schooling has remained relatively stable during the past year.

Students are often given the grades A, B, C, D, and FAIL to denote the quality of their work. Suppose the public schools themselves, in this community, were graded in the same way. What grade would you give the public schools here -- A, B, C, D, or FAIL?(Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa Study)

	National totals		No children in school		Public school parents
	2000	1999	2000	1999	2000	1999
	%	%	%	%	%	%
A & B	47	49	44	47	56	56
A	11	11	10	10	14	15
B	36	38	34	37	42	41
C	35	31	35	31	33	31
D	8	9	8	10	6	8
FAIL	3	5	3	4	3	4
Don't know	7	6	10	8	2	1

How about the public schools in the nation as a whole? What grade would you give the public schools nationally -- A, B, C, D, or FAIL?(Gallup/Phi Delta Kappa study)

	National totals		No children in school		Public school parents
	2000	1999	2000	1999	2000	1999
	%	%	%	%	%	%
A & B	20	24	19	26	22	21
A	2	2	2	1	2	3
B	18	22	17	25	20	18
C	47	46	47	43	47	50
D	14	16	14	16	12	17
FAIL	5	4	6	4	4	5
Don't know	14	10	14	11	15	7

Survey Methods

These results are based on telephone interviews with randomly selected national samples of at least 1,000 adults, 18 years and older, conducted in 2000 and 2001. For results based on these samples, one can say with 95 percent confidence that the maximum error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.