Devoted Reader Nick sends along a Yahoo!News link to the poll, which carries the ominous headline, "Most Americans Oppose Vouchers, Poll Says". As Nick said in his email:
It's quite humorous to me how a majority of the people polled oppose vouchers, yet a majority would use them if offered...Here's the actual poll data.
This is actually the same poll that I blogged a couple of days ago. I didn't catch the part about vouchers then, and Nick is right in saying that the headline doesn't quite agree with the real heart of the findings:
Even though a majority [62%] opposed school vouchers, poll respondents divided equally on whether a voucher program would improve student achievement in their community, with 48 percent saying it would and 48 percent saying it wouldn't.
Which means at least some of those who oppose school vouchers (i.e., allowing students to attend private schools on the public dime) still think that it would improve student performance. What's, more the percentage of respondents who believe that vouchers would improve public school performance has risen from 17% to 26% in seven years.
"The public doesn't seem to buy the argument ... that (vouchers) will create a competitive environment and that public schools will strive harder and raise student achievement because of vouchers," said Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy in Washington.
Some 62 percent of respondents said that if they were given a full-tuition voucher they would send their child to a private or religious school. With a half-tuition voucher, that number dropped to 51 percent.
Oh. So "the public" doesn't believe in vouchers; they don't buy that arguments. But if vouchers existed, then a majority of respondents would use them to get their kids out of the public school system. Even with a half-tuition voucher, you still see a large percentage.
This is what the headline should have been:
At the same time, 73 percent of poll respondents believed the existing school system should be reformed — not replaced by an alternative system. The word "voucher" was not mentioned in this question.
Three-quarters of the respondents want change. But the educational establishment seems prepared to offer only change like teacher pay raises (but not based on merit) and refusal of vouchers (so that kids are stuck in failing schools).
Posted by kswygert at August 21, 2003 10:39 AM