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A New Public Opinion Poll on Education.
Education Next, a journal published by the Hoover Institute, has released a new public opinion poll on education issues. The reauthorization of No Child Left Behind has been delayed since 2007, and if members of Congress see this poll, they might conclude they don't want to tackle the issue until after 2010 midterm elections. NCLB's popularity is at an all-time low, as is the more general idea of a "federal accountability law." Yet the consensus in Washington is that the law is worth preserving, albeit with significant modifications.
The poll was conducted March, at the height of President Obama's popularity. So it's unsurprising that when respondents were told about Obama's support for teacher merit pay and charter schools, their own support for such policies increased. Obama's influence on respondents was stronger than the influence of "research," if they were told research suggested a policy worked:
My only problem with this poll is that when it comes to merit pay and charters, research is actually far from conclusive. A study of charter schools in 16 states -- conducted by Stanford, where Education Next is based -- found that in math, only about 17 percent of charter schools increase student achievement over traditional public schools. The researchers described the results as "sobering." On merit pay, I've written at length about the lack of strong evidence that changing the way teachers are paid will lead to gains in student achievement -- though there may be other benefits.
--Dana Goldstein
COMMENTS (3)
I don't know, maybe if the program sucks and has ever-declining
The first question says the public wants a better school system and will welcome any positive sounding change. The Second Question is not a rewording of the first question, it's asking people if they support a specific policy or not.
Instead of assuming people are morons, maybe we should assume they don't like NCLB and like it less and less the more the get to know it. But hey, our "betters" in Washington always know better than we do while they cloister their children in private schools and never have to live in the system they create.
I get that you clearly want to live in some sort of technocracy where the elite can rule and hide behind studies and research to justify whatever they do, but maybe we should start moving back toward the idea of Democracy given the rather disasterous path the countries taken under the more autocratic rule of the last decade.
Posted by: soullite | September 3, 2009 11:20 AM
Dana-
You're grammatically correct when you write that Education Next is "based" at Stanford, because it's published by the Hoover Institution. I remind you that the late Glenn Campbell, when he headed the Hoover, announced that "The Hoover Institution is at Stanford, but not of Stanford." Most of the faculty are happily in agreement.
Posted by: Etaoin Shrdlu | September 3, 2009 10:12 PM
NCLB was a horrible law. The Feds should go back to funding proven winners like Head Start and back away from "one size fits all" national education requirements. Many of the requirements were unrealistic from the get-go, especially for rural schools.
Some kids come to school needing to learn life skills. Others could do with some critical thinking and reasoning skills. Some will need heavy math and science for a future in certain fields, while others will want to pursue interests in the humanities while in high school. Our high schools are at their best when they offer this flexibility.
Instead, with NCLB, we get teaching to the test. (Not to mention teacher-instigated cheating, which doesn't teach children anything good.)
IMO, the only times teaching to the test is appropriate are in remedial instruction classes where there's a heavy emphasis on rote learning and memorization so that the poor kid can master the basics, and also in AP classes as test season approaches so that students not only know the material, but are prepared for the mechanics of actually sitting for the exam.
US education is actually admired around the world for turning out students who not only know facts, but know how to think. Even though our average student measures up poorly to other nations, our elite students are knocking their socks off. NCLB not only creates the illusion of improvement by grinding all down to the same level of mediocrity, it works to demolish the one thing that US schools do *right.
Posted by: not a gator | September 4, 2009 11:07 AM