News Brief
PDK/Gallup Releases Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward Public Schools
By Katey McGettrickThe 2012 annual Phi Delta Kappa (PDK)/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward Public Schools, which polls the public on a number of education topics, contains positive findings for the Common Core. According to the report, most Americans believe the Common Core standards will allow U.S. schools to compete globally, and three out of four Americans believe the standards will provide more consistency in the quality of education between school districts and states. In addition, half of those polled believe the standards will improve the quality of education in their community schools. However, 40 percent responded that the standards would not have any effect on education.
The findings from the annual poll are based on Americans' perceptions of the most important issues in education, including how to manage and invest in schools, particularly as it relates to preparing and evaluating teachers. Many of the findings show divided viewpoints on the public's appraisal and opinions of our public schools.
One of the most interesting findings from the poll is that almost half of Americans give the schools in their community a grade of either an A or B, while almost 50 percent of Americans assigned a mediocre grade of C to the nation's schools as a whole.
Other notable findings include clear partisan divides over issues like providing free public education and other benefits to illegal immigrants (65 percent of Democrats favor it compared to 21 percent of Republicans) and support of public charter schools, for which 80 percent of Republicans are supportive compared to 54 percent of Democrats.
Read the full report and findings.