School Choice or Best Systems_ What Improves Education_ - Margaret C. Wang [47]
These numbers may seem at odds with the findings of the professional educators’ society, Phi Delta Kappa. In 2006 PDK reported apparent declines in public support for choice, with only 36 percent of the public describing themselves as “favorable” toward education vouchers, while 60 percent were opposed.15 As Terry Moe first pointed out, the reason for the discrepancy lies in PDK’s change in the question wording. The latest version of PDK’s survey asks, “Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?” As Terry Moe concluded:
PDK’s “at public expense” item does not even come close to meeting these basic criteria [of maintaining the same question from year to year and in stating the purpose of vouchers]. The central purpose of a voucher program is to expand the choices available to all qualifying parents, especially those who now have kids in public schools. But the PDK item does absolutely nothing to convey this information. It says nothing about choice, nothing about public school parents’ being eligible to participate. Instead, it focuses entirely on private school parents and asks respondents whether the government ought to be subsidizing them. Vouchers are presented, in effect, as a special-interest program for an exclusive group.16
Moe’s data, taken from other national surveys with less-loaded questions, indicate 56 percent support for vouchers in 2000 and 62 percent in 2001. In fact, in 2001 a more neutrally worded PDK question read, “Would you vote for or against a system giving parents the option of using government-funded school vouchers to pay for tuition at the public, private, or religious schools of their choice? Sixty-two percent of respondents expressed support.
In 2004 and again in 2005, Harris Interactive conducted polls using the “loaded” PDK language and a more neutrally phrased question: “Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose any school, public or private, to attend using public funds?” In 2005, 60 percent of respondents were favorable and only 33 percent were opposed.17
Because of stronger inner-city and minority preferences for private schools, it seems likely that the demands for choice will continue to grow. The U.S. Department of Education’s Condition of Education 2005 shows that students from nonwhite backgrounds grew from 22 percent to 42 percent from 1972 to 2003. The demographic projections indicate that minority students will eventually be the majority in U.S. schools. Thus, since minorities that prefer choice will become majorities, the vast majority of parents are likely to prefer a choice of which school their children attend.
In sum, the majority of the public favors publicly funded vouchers, and the percentages appear to be growing. Private schools, there seems little doubt, best meet the standard of consumer satisfaction. These findings are corroborated by the previously discussed over-subscription to public and private voucher programs and the need for choosing students by lottery at private and charter schools.
Public Dissatisfaction with Traditional Public Schools
Surveys also reveal that the public is increasingly aware of the poor standing of American schools, the lack of achievement progress, and the threat to individual and national welfare of ineffective, inefficient K-12 education. For example, polling by Hart and Winston in 2005 found that only 9 percent of adults agree that schools set high expectations and significantly challenge most high school students.18 A 2005 survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates found that only 24 percent of recent high school graduates said that they faced high expectations and were significantly challenged.19
The 2006 PDK public opinion poll showed that 32 percent of respondents gave public schools a C, 9 percent a D, and 5 percent an F. This means that nearly half (46 percent) of the respondents thought the schools were average or worse. PDK