Poll: Education On Wrong Track, But Local Schools Are Fine

A majority of Arkansans believe that K-12 education in the state is on the wrong track, but they like their local schools. That’s according to the findings of a new poll commissioned by Talk Business & Politics, Hendrix College and Impact Management Group.

In the poll, “The State of Education in Arkansas,” 51% of registered voters said that K-12 education in Arkansas is on the wrong track, versus 35% who said it is headed in the right direction. The other 14% were unsure or didn’t know.

But asked to give their local pubic school district a grade, only 8% gave it a “D” while 6% gave it an “F.” Another 23% gave it an “A,” 33% gave it a “B,” and 29% gave it a “C.”

“We see a ‘Congress Effect’ in these results,” said Talk Business & Politics Editor-in-Chief Roby Brock. “Just like people love their Congressman but hate Congress, they love their local schools but distrust education at the state level.”

Four hundred registered voters were surveyed April 2-5, with a plus or minus margin of error of 4.9%. Three-fourths were surveyed by landline and one-fourth by cell phone.

The results indicate that Arkansans have greater trust in their public schools than in public education in general – an attitude reflected in their answers to a question about who should have primary control over curricula.

In the survey, 56% said it should be the local school district, 29% said it should be the state government, and 9% said it should be the federal government. Asked what one thing would improve Arkansas’ schools, the word “teachers” was a part of more responses than any other.

COMMON CORE CONTROVERSY
The Common Core, a set of educational standards in math and English language arts adopted by 43 states and the District of Columbia, has become a political hot potato.

Some believe it is an example of federal overreach and a usurpation of local control. Arkansas is part of the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a testing consortium that will compare students’ scores. The number of states involved has dwindled from 24 to nine, Arkansas being one of them.

Arkansans offered a wide range of answers when asked to name the first thing that came to their mind when presented with the phrase “Common Core.” The most often used word was “common.” However, 74% support (39% strongly, 35% somewhat) “the concept of states working together to create, adopt, and implement clear and concise educational standards that detail what K-12 students should know at the end of each grade.”

In other findings, 66% of respondents support (36% strongly, 30% somewhat), the continued expansion of open enrollment charter schools, meaning public schools not run by the local school district where enrollment is open to anyone. Of the rest, 10% somewhat oppose expansion, while 11% strongly oppose it.

Another 79% of Arkansans (54% percent strongly, 25% somewhat) support “using tax dollars to make sure high quality pre-school programs are available for every child in Arkansas.”

Sixty-eight percent of respondents agreed (44% strongly, 24% somewhat) with a recently passed law allowing the State Board of Education to allow school districts with fewer than 350 students to avoid consolidating with another district as long as the small district is not in academic, fiscal or facilities distress. Another 23% disagreed with the new law (12% somewhat, 11% strongly).

In the survey, 28% of respondents said they have children under the age of 18 living at home. Sixty-six percent said their children attend a traditional public school, 13% said they attend a public charter school, 7% said they attend a private school, and 6% said their children are home schooled. Another 7% said “other.”

Asked about the importance of the quality of public schools in determining where they choose to live, 36% said “extremely important,” while 32% said “very important” and 12% said “somewhat important.” Another 19% said “not at all important.

The respondents were almost evenly split by gender and evenly split by the state’s four congressional districts. Eighty-four percent said they are white, 12% said they are African-American, and 2% said they are Hispanic American or Latino.

Forty-five percent said their total annual household income is below $51,000, while 15% said it is above $100,000. Forty-one percent said they are a college graduate. Half said they live in a rural area, while 29% said they live in a suburban area and 19% said they live in an urban area. Sixty-four percent said they are at least 45 years old.

Dr. Jay Barth, professor of political science at Hendrix College, helped construct and analyze the poll. Barth noted:

On Pre-K:

There is overwhelming support for universally accessible pre-K programs in the state with a majority of our sample strongly supporting the concept and nearly 8 in 10 either strongly or somewhat supportive. Because tax revenues would be used for an expansion of pre-K there is some evidence of ideological and partisan division on the issue. Still, 72 percent of Republicans support the concept to some degree. Despite this overwhelming support, of course, state funding for the Arkansas Better Chance pre-K program has been flat for seven years until a $3million increase in funding was approved by the most recent legislative session. In a battle between tax cuts and expansion of pre-K in recent years, tax cuts of various types have won out. Our polling indicates that this is one area where revenue increases for a specific program might well receive public support.

On Charters:

The survey also asked one question about the continued expansion of open enrollment charter schools in Arkansas. This is another popular concept, with two-thirds of those surveyed either strongly (36%) or somewhat (30%) supportive of expansion. It is notable that this question shows a higher “don’t know” response (13%) than other questions included in this education survey, showing continued lack of knowledge among a chunk of Arkansans. Among those with an opinion, almost no partisan division is shown with both 41% of Democrats and Republicans strongly supportive of expansion. Just as there is little partisan division, there is is fairly constant support for charter expansion across key demographic and geographic subgroups. However, charters are most popular among African-American voters as well as the more heavily suburbanized 2nd Congressional District (central Arkansas). While the general concept of charters is a popular one, new charters are considered on a case-by-case basis and, often, objections have arisen to individual proposals because of questions about the charter proposers or the plan or a school’s impact on traditional public education in a community.