Education Next (Ednext) and Phi Delta Kappan (PDK) both released their annual polls last week. (Disclaimer:  I am among those responsible for the Ednext poll).   Many of the questions asked are very different in the two polls, so direct comparisons of their findings are limited to only a couple of questions. But when it comes to evaluations of the nation’s schools and assessments of charter schools, they report results that are strikingly similar–despite that Ednext is an online poll (executed by Knowledge Networks), while PDK is a telephone poll (conducted by Gallup).

When rating the nation’s schools, only 18 percent of those surveyed in both polls gave the nation’s schools either an “A” or a “B” and, more than a quarter gave the schools a rating of a “D” or an “F.”  In both polls, grades are roughly the same as those reported by Ednext and PDK  in 2009. Never before have school ratings fallen to such low levels since the question was first asked back in 1981.  One can only wonder whether Americans are losing confidence in the nation’s schools.

To those interested in polling methodology, it is noteworthy that the two polls got the same result when they asked the same question.  Many pollsters are debating whether an online poll (used by Ednext) has now become superior to a telephone poll (used by PDK) on the grounds that people don’t answer their phone anymore.  My own view is that pollsters have refined their techniques to the point that either approach is pretty good, if the firm does its work carefully (as both Gallup and Knowledge Networks do).

Yet at first glance it appears that  PDK finds much more support for charter schools than the Ednext poll does.  According to PDK, 68 percent of the public “favor” charter schools, while only 28 percent oppose them, with just 4 percent having no opinion.  That is a major increase in support for charter schools since 2005, when, according to PDK, only 49 percent favored charters, and 41 percent stood in opposition.

http://educationnext.org/what-do-americans-think-of-the-nations-schools-how-widespread-is-the-support-for-charter-schools/