Education Polling

Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation and Public PolicyEducation ChoiceEducation EquityEducation PollingFeaturedMicroschoolsParental ChoiceSchool ChoiceTechnology and InnovationUnionism

The empire strikes out

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

What is thy bidding my master?

I have felt it.

It will be very difficult to conceal, but if we would agree to reopen the large schools …

Yes, my master…

What about the organizations that are providing devices and public funding for instructors? The ones addressing the equity issues rather than merely talking about them?

A recent EdChoice poll found that about one-third of parents who responded to its survey are participating in pandemic pods, and that a majority – 53% – either are participating or looking to form a pod. The following graphic accompanied poll results, providing parents’ explanations for why they are participating, why they’re wanting to begin participating, or why they are not planning to participate in the practice.

Last week, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey hosted Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in Phoenix. Districts, charter and mico-school leaders and parents spoke about innovative school models, one of which was a school formed by members of the Black Mother’s Forum in cooperation with Prenda, an Arizona-based micro-school organization.

The Wall Street Journal noted an opposition report to micro-schools delivered to the National Education Association concerning these types of schools in general and Prenda in particular.

“The Opposition Report has documented widespread support for micro-schools,” it read. The NEA opposition report cites an expert who thinks micro-schools can “address some of the structural limitations of homeschooling,” such as parents’ work obligations, and — this is Prenda’s innovation — take advantage of school choice programs to “alleviate some equity issues” posed by the cost of hiring your own teachers. The combination could make home education feasible for millions more families.

The NEA opposition report goes on, predictably, to raise concerns about pods increasing achievement gaps. The Wall Street Journal sagely notes this view goes beyond the nonsensical.

It’s a strange pitch from the teachers union: micro-schools are dangerous — they help their students learn more! This seems like a reason to broaden access, not restrict it. And that’s what Prenda has done by eliminating tuition: make micro-schools accessible to low-income families.

So, if you are scoring at home, the NEA opposes public schools reopening. It also opposes parents innovating to provide their children with in-person instruction and socialization due to equity concerns. If someone actually addresses equity concerns by paying the in-person instructor, providing computer and internet access, they are really against it.

If parents are watching all of this, including the harm it is doing to the education of their children, I can imagine their reaction might look something like this:

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.rapgenius.com%2F3b7d0ab92ca749210ddc1fa2099d9336.320x137x88.gif&f=1&nofb=1

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Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedNewsParental ChoiceSchool Choice

Another poll shows American families want more school choice

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A new survey of likely voters in five key swing states commissioned by the Manhattan Institute found that respondents, especially nonwhite Americans, tend to favor expanded school choice options.

The poll surveyed about 5,000 likely voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina between late August and Early September and found that between two-thirds and three-quarters of voters in those states support publicly funded K-12 school choice.

Key findings:

·       Between 51% and 62% of respondents said they support state-funded charter schools as an alternative to district-managed public schools.

·       Support for publicly funded school choice programs was higher among Black respondents in every state except North Carolina.

·       Only about one-fifth of voters surveyed said they believed giving parents more choice in their children’s education would lower educational quality.

To read more, click here.

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedParental ChoiceSchool Choice

New poll: Support for school choice continues to grow

redefinED staff
redefinED staff

A survey of 2,020 registered voters conducted by RealClear Opinion Research indicates support for school choice is surging as families become increasingly frustrated with district schools’ response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Since April, overall support for the concept of school choice among families with children in public schools has jumped 10 percentage points, from 67% to 77% according to poll results released today.

That support is relatively even across political lines, with 76% of Republicans, 73% of Independents and 72% of Democrats responding affirmatively that they would support giving parents a portion of the $15,424 per student the average American taxpayer spends on K-12 public education for home, virtual or private education if public schools do not reopen for in-person classes.

Additionally, 78% of public school parents and 79% of non-public school parents said they would support the governor of their state putting federal funding for the purchase of education technology and materials, private school tuition and home education directly in the hands of families and allowing them to choose how to use those funds to support their child’s education.

Support for this effort also was evenly distributed among party lines, with 68% of Republicans, 68% of Independents, and 66% of Democrats agreeing.

“The inflexibility of our K-12 system is on full display, leaving families to scramble as the special interests that have controlled our public education system for generations continue to oppose giving families and students greater educational choice,” said John Schilling, president of the American Federation for Children. “It could not be more clear that families are desperate for other options and will support governors and other policymakers as they pursue policies that let them control their child’s education funding.”

The RealClear poll was conducted Aug. 19-21 and carries a margin of error of +/1 2.4%.

More school choice polling can be found here.

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AnalysisCoronavirus / COVID-19Demographic ResearchEducation PollingFeaturedNews

Survey: What American families experienced when COVID-19 closed schools

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

A new Education Next survey reveals 71% of parents perceived their children learned less during the pandemic than they would have had they remained in brick-and-mortar schools.

COVID-19 upended and changed the lives of millions of Americans this spring, forcing the nation’s schools to close and requiring a shift from in-person to virtual learning. In retrospect, what do parents think about the quality of instruction their children received?

Education Next surveyed them to find out. The results, released earlier this week, paint an interesting picture.

Among the 1,249 parents of 2,147 children surveyed, 71% said they thought their children learned less at home than they would have had they been in school. But surprisingly, 72% said they were satisfied with the attempt.

Black and Hispanic parents reported higher satisfaction with remote learning (30% and 32%, respectively), than white parents (26%). Charter school and private school parents (45% and 39%, respectively), reported higher satisfaction than parents whose children attended a public district school (29%).

According to their parents, larger shares of the children of white respondents and children in higher income households learned less than they would have if schools had remained open than children of Black and Hispanic students and those in lower-income households.

Not all schools prioritized learning new content according to the survey. Overall, 74% of parents said their child’s school introduced new content, while 24% said the school focused on reviewing content students had already learned.

A large gap in perception persisted between high- and low-income families. Among low-income families, 33% reported that schools reviewed content students had already learned, compared to 19% of high-income parents.

Parents overall reported that one-on-one meetings between students and teachers occurred rarely, with only 38% saying such meetings occurred at least once a week. About 40% said one-on-one meetings never occurred.

Parents reported that class-wide meetings occurred more frequently, with 69% reporting class-wide virtual meetings with teachers occurred at least once a week.

Black parents reported their children spent more time per day (4.3 hours) on schoolwork than white parents (3.1 hours). Black parents also said their students suffered less learning loss than the parents of white students.

The survey also included a sample of 490 K-12 teachers who work in schools that closed during the pandemic. Teachers’ responses generally mirrored how parents described their children’s experiences with several exceptions.

Thirty-six percent of teachers said they met individually with students multiple times a week, compared with 19% of parents. Teachers also reported providing grades or feedback more often than parents. Meanwhile, teachers reported providing fewer required assignments than parents said their children received.

Parents and teachers generally agreed on how much students learned during distance learning, with teachers more likely than parents to say children learned less than they would have if schools had remained open.

The survey was conducted from May 14 to May 20 by the polling firm Ipsos Public Affairs via its KnowledgePanel. Respondents could elect to complete the survey in English or Spanish.

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Commentary and OpinionCustomizationEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedParental ChoicePublic School ChoiceSchool Choice

Ahead of National School Choice Week, much to celebrate but still more to achieve

Matthew Ladner
Matthew Ladner

National School Choice Week, set for Jan. 26-Feb. 1, is a time to celebrate the progress made in the expansion of schooling options for families. Within the lifetime of this author and many of you readers, only parents who could afford to strategically purchase real estate or pay for private school tuition on top of their district taxes could exercise choice in education.

We’ve come a long way from that system. For instance, in Florida, hundreds of thousands of students make use of various forms of choice. Of Florida’s 3.4 million preK-12 students, 47 percent attended a school of their choice during the 2017-18 school year.

Of that number, more than 292,000 attended charter schools, nearly 263,000 took advantage of open enrollment options, and more than 226,000 found seats in choice and magnet programs within public school districts. Another 87,591 participated in home education programs and 159,297 took advantage of career and technical education public high schools.

Florida families will have much to celebrate next week, but there’s still much more to do.

Families are best served by a set of options both diverse in educational approach and reasonably proximate to the family. In Florida, there are 1,818 schools serving low-income students through scholarships, 1,660 district magnet programs and 655 charter schools. Meanwhile, the ability for families to choose district schools other than their assigned school has improved.

That’s a good start, but there’s a catch: Many of these schools have students on waitlists. While the number of proximate “good fit” schools is a blessing, sitting on the waitlist for a proximate “good fit” school feels like a curse. The ability to scale high-demand schools is crucial.

Here are the results of an EdChoice poll that queried parents’ schooling preferences by type. The results show that while more than eight in 10 American students attend public district schools, only about three of 10 parents said they prefer a district school.

EdChoice and others have asked polling questions like this one by sector. In this example, approximately four times as many people preferred private and charter schools as actually attend those schools. This result indicates a certain level of dissatisfaction with district schools in the abstract, but that does not mean that in a truly demand-driven system, parents would lead a mass exodus from district schools.

The bottom bar of the graph shows that neither charter nor private schools have anything like the capacity to take a mass exodus. Adding school supply inevitably represents an incremental endeavor.

A rich empirical literature in Florida and elsewhere indicates that district schools show improved performance in the face of competition. Districts also can develop specialized schools focused on high-demand offerings. Choice therefore represents a good strife rather than a dire threat to districts.

While all families want their children to have a safe school that will equip them with the knowledge and habits necessary for success in life, there are a great many paths up that mountain. The most important mix of school offerings is not by sector but rather by focus. While there is a limited number of school sectors, there is a great desire for variety.

Families are diverse in their educational desires, with some preferring an arts focus and others preferring a STEM focus. Many families want classical education, and America has a variety of culturally differentiated schools. Many families need a second-chance school that specializes in helping students who have fallen behind catch up, others desire programs and schools with deep experience in helping students with disabilities.

Many families desire industry training, but others want their kids to get a perfect score on their college entrance exam. Arizona has charter schools focused on equestrianism that do quite well academically. (Your author’s sisters would have given their two front teeth to attend one of these schools.)

It is an act of hubris and folly to attempt to be all things to everyone within a single school. The best-case scenario would be to become the jack of some trades and the master of some.

Education, of course, also happens outside of “school,” and at this point Florida is close to the only state to recognize this, although only in a very modest way. Nevertheless, innovators are developing the technology and practices needed to allow students to engage in multi-vendor education.

There will be thousands of celebrations next week, which are needed and appropriate. But then we’ll have to roll up our sleeves and get back to work. The education freedom movement has come a long way, but we have a good long way yet to go.

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2020 Presidential ElectionDemographic ResearchEducation ChoiceEducation PollingFeaturedFlorida Tax Credit ScholarshipNewsSchool ChoiceTax Credit ScholarshipsVouchers

Public support for education choice continues to surge as some presidential candidates swim upstream

Patrick R. Gibbons
Patrick R. Gibbons

While the reasons for Democratic presidential candidate and leading anti-charter stalwart Elizabeth Warren’s nearly 13-point polling plummet are multifaceted, a recent public confrontation with school choice supporters and the revelation that she sent her son to a $17,000-a-year private school likely contributed to the decline.

Warren’s strong anti-school choice stance probably isn’t working in her favor if education choice polls are any indication. A RealClear Opinion Research survey conducted this fall reported that 68 percent of Americans now support the concept of school choice.

The poll, sponsored by the American Federation for Children, included 2,014 registered voters. Forty-two percent identified as Democratic, 31 percent as Republican, and 28 percent as Independent.

Fully 70 percent of respondents said they support a federal tax credit scholarship program similar to the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship administered by Step Up For Students (which hosts this blog) that serves more than 100,000 lower-income students.

According to the American Federation for Children, the strongest support for a tax credit scholarship – 74 percent – came from respondents 45 to 54 years old. Meanwhile, 71 percent of black voters, the highest level of any racial demographic, were supportive. Latino voters also showed strong support with 69 percent favoring school choice.

In terms of political party, about 76 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats supported school choice options overall.

While 53 percent of respondents said they currently send their children to district-run public schools, given a choice, 70 percent would choose another educational option; 39 percent specifically identified their first choice as a private school.

The National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher union and most vocal opponent of school choice vouchers and charter schools, has yet to endorse a presidential candidate for 2020. Though the union is expected to contribute millions of dollars to the presidential campaign, it remains to be seen if its endorsed candidate will be able to maintain an anti-education choice stance given public sentiment in favor of it, compounded by the fact that several swing states including Arizona and Florida have large education choice populations.

Other swing states, such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, have large charter school populations, and Pennsylvania also offers tax credit scholarships to thousands of lower- and middle-income students.

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