Americans are divided over much in public education, including whether it's fair to use test scores to rate teachers and whether children of illegal immigrants should be able to attend school for free.
The biggest single issue undermining schools is lack of funding, according to the 2012 Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll released this week on a range of issues in public education.
"Lack of financial support trumps everything. People get it," said Lily Eskelsen, a Utah elementary teacher who is also vice president of the National Education Association.
"I am seeing higher class sizes, kids that don't have proper textbooks, technology and support staff," she said.
Respondents in the annual poll were asked questions from school finance to the common core curriculum and from their confidence in teachers to what should be done about bullying.
They want teachers prepared "at least" to the level of professionals in engineering, business, law and medicine. They also agreed that neither high school graduates nor dropouts are prepared for what they will face in the workplace.
Fifty percent say the common core curriculum (adopted by 45 states) will improve the quality of education; 40 percent expect it will have no effect and 8 percent say it will decrease quality. More than half of respondents (52 percent) want teacher evaluations to include student test scores.
Ten years ago, the biggest issue (39 percent) in public education, according to Gallup, was discipline, violence and drugs. This year, 35 percent say it is funding compared to 14 percent worried about violence, discipline and drugs. And among parents of public school students, the percentage jumped to 43 percent, creating what the pollsters said was a "significant shift" in what the public sees as undermining public education.
Pollsters also "sensed a hardening of viewpoints on public education," often aligned to a political party, Bill Bushaw, executive director of PDK International, said in a conference call with reporters.
"America is divided if children of immigrants who enter the country illegally should receive a free education; they are divided on vouchers and clearly are divided on which political candidate will be more supportive of public education," he said.
For the first time in at least five years, those in favor of charter schools dipped slightly; 66 percent said they prefer charters, compared to 70 percent in 2011. In the same time period, those who think students should be able to attend private schools at public expense (vouchers) jumped 10 percentage points to 44 percent.
Gallup polled 1,002 adults by phone in May and June. Respondents were chosen randomly from a Gallup pool representative of the nation's demographics. The poll has margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Contact Jane Roberts of The Commercial Appeal in Memphis, Tenn., at robertsj@commercialappeal.com.
samkat posted at 4:20 pm on Mon, Aug 27, 2012.
Tookie: I think Mike will bear me out on my comment. Ask teachers just how many hours they put in off the clock to stay abreast of the job requirements. Unfortunately, folks like Leon and alpha have little conception as to the amount of time and effort most teachers expend for what they get paid. If you work an 8 hour a day job, it is easy enough to rationalize that everyone else has it just as easy as you do.
Tookie88 posted at 10:39 pm on Sun, Aug 26, 2012.
Funding is and always will be an issue in education...and any other publicly funded entity. However, the point that fails "Leon" and "Alphabet" is that private schools can CHOOSE who attend their school...public schools cannot. Public schools have to take everyone and anyone, no matter their ability. Plus, parents are more vested in private schools because it directly affects their pocket book...public school parents don't have the same level of vested interest as a private school parent does.
Public school is not free daycare, but so many parents treat it as if it is....that there is the bigger problem to me than the actual funding of our schools. Once parents start caring and making education a priority in their household, students will learn beyond leaps and bounds.
As to a comment about teachers leaving and parents wanting them to be on the same level as other "professionals", all I can say is ask a teacher how many hours they work during the day and the many hats they have to wear for the amount of money that they make....then you will quickly see why they leave teaching. They simply burn out...the enthusiasm a new teacher feels cannot last forever...it gets snubbed out.
chatmandu002 posted at 10:23 am on Sun, Aug 26, 2012.
More funding does not equate to better education.
soricobob posted at 6:42 am on Sun, Aug 26, 2012.
There are a few issues bigger than money. And I say this because the schools that have the highest achieving students in the U.S. do not have the highest paid teachers. 1. Since college programs that prepare teachers do not have a common core of teaching, each college allows "study" of various "methods of teaching", so that when a student graduates that student has been exposed to a variety of philosophies of teaching, but is ready to teach none; 2. The in-service days provided by school districts (both prior to the school year and during) not only do not address the issues of how to teach, but have never brought classroom aides together to learn methods of teaching; 3. School administrators have, for decades, operated on the trickle down theory (i.e. hang around long enough and you'll pick it up); 4. Just about the only formal training that occurs today is in the areas of reading (e.g. Orton-Gillingham, Sonday, etc.) or math (e.g. Saxxon), which is fine, but has ignored Science and Social Studies as if they do not exist (and a textbook derived "curriculum" might be seen as significant-which it isn't).
No, it's not money, it's allocation of resources, philosophy of teaching teacher, involving parents, and structuring a classroom so that all students are being taught.
Mike McClellan posted at 10:00 pm on Sat, Aug 25, 2012.
I don't expect Leon and Alphabet to understand this, but at least in Arizona, education funding as a portion of individual income or as portion of Arizona's GDP or even as the portion of the budget has actually dropped since 1980, and compared to the 1960's, our K-12 budget has shrunk considerably in comparison with the rest of the country:
In 1966, our K-12 per pupil spending was 38% above the national average; today, it's 17% below the current average.
In 1979. education made up 70% of the state's budget; today, it's 57%.
Adjusted for inflation, we spend much less per pupil than we did 40 or 50 years ago in AZ.
That's according to our legislature's nonpartisan Joint Legislative Budget Committee.
Leon and Alphabet have a lot of arguments but little proof.
Irons1 posted at 7:50 pm on Sat, Aug 25, 2012.
What we really need is to make sure idiots like Leon and alphabet are never put in charge of anything.
alphabet posted at 6:55 pm on Sat, Aug 25, 2012.
Leon has hit it square on the head!
The more we pour into schools, the less we are getting for our tax money! Look at what private schools spend per student, around one third of the public school cost. Yet private schools always out perform public schools!
The problem is not one of money for schools, the problem is where and how the money is spent!!! Of the increase in taxpayer's money spent, most is spent on administration, toward ever bigger and more lavish salaries and retirement pensions.
We do not need to give the schools more money, we do not need more teachers and smaller class sizes. We need smaller, and more consolidated administrations! We need to start putting students first, and this in not done by giving Teachers Unions more money to flush down the toilet!
The school systems across America have become bloated and greedy, always looking out for themselves and not the students. We have a few good instructors, but these tend to flame out and leave the system in only a few years. The average teacher last around 3 years after they first start teaching. Does that not tell you something, and the reason they leave is not wages.
For over 30 years school spending has been going up at a faster pace than inflation, yet students scores have been steadily slipping downward! Why would a person in their right mind put more money into a failing system that can only keep asking for more and more money???? A smart person would put the money into private schools, were scores have held steady or improved over the same 30 year period.
That tells me, we are placing the money into the wrong people's hands! Why give money to a drunk that keeps claiming just a but more money and things will get better!
Who is the bigger fool, the drunk or the idiot giving money to the drunk????
one of the last posted at 6:44 pm on Sat, Aug 25, 2012.
Many of the Children that are the children of Illegals are US citizens. Illegals pay more in taxes, and more that they dont get refunded from taxes payed than the same job doing citizens. They are paying for the Education too.
one of the last posted at 6:41 pm on Sat, Aug 25, 2012.
Is there a Polling group that is ultra Right wing? The bar has gone so far to the right that anything not Right wing Radical is Liberal.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 6:28 pm on Sat, Aug 25, 2012.
EXCUSE ME.....EXCUSE ME..
Could we have a poll from an unbiased group.
PHI DELTA KAPPA .........is the "premier", the "largest", the "best financed" group of........PROFESSIONAL EDUCATORS.
Of course they are going to say that .........."SCHOOLS NEED MORE MONEY"....because more money means that they get ........."HIGHER SALARIES".
Whenever you see that the reporter or the article come from the ..."SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA"...........based Scripps Howard News Service..........RED FLAGS SHOULD START GOING UP ALL OVER THE PLACE.....time to check the "sources" because 99 times out of 100 = they will be ...LEFT-WING LIBERALS.